Karma yoga: Change your attitude and your world will change.

My first job, was to scoop out the grey, unidentifiable sludge that collected in the outdoor drains of the showers and sinks. I was given a shovel and a bucket and told to get to work.

It was day two of a four month course in one of India’s more traditional and, dare I say it hardcore, ashrams. I’d committed to be there and had no idea what I was getting myself into.

The grey sludge would slip off the side of the shovel onto my feet and splash into my face as I tipped it unceremoniously into the bucket that was slightly too narrow for the shovel.

This, I was told, was karma yoga. The yoga of action.

I didn’t like it. No way. This was not what I had come for.

I though yoga meant a great body, sweat, flexibility (I was secretly excited about how good my body would be after the ashram experience). Not only was my western concept of yoga completely deluded, my ego was totally focused on the material, self-centred and physical gains of yoga.

As we settled into ashram life I was taken off the drains and assigned to the ‘accommodations’ department. We cleaned rooms. Every day. For seven hours.

It was nuts. You couldn’t believe it. Up at 4am, yoga class, breakfast and then cleaning, until lunch, then more cleaning, sometimes a lecture in the afternoon, cleaning before AND after dinner, and then bed at 9 or 10.

And boy did I dig my heals in. I hated it. It seemed to be a challenge of epic proportions, day in day out, minute by minute, hating the cleaning, making up all sorts of stories in my mind, totally confused and unfocused.

I was R.E.S.I.S.T.A.N.T.

I took some time one day to speak with one of the Sanyasins. An orange robed fellow who had decided he didn’t mind the cleaning and had signed his life over to live in the ashram. Dineshji was his name. He was kind, elderly and felt extremely wise. Being with him I was shown a mirror and could sense my western ego, my fast-paced judgmental mind, my fury, my anger.

We sat on a bench overlooking the Ganges.

“I just don’t get it. What am I learning by going through with this ordeal!? I’m hating it and suffering with each moment.”

He asked me to clarify, “What exactly is the problem?”

“Well. It’s obvious isn’t it. There’s me, the room to clean, the cleaning equipment and then there’s my hatred, frustration and resistance.”

“Why are you resistant?”

“Huh?…” I didn’t have an answer to that.

“That is what you’ve come here to learn.”

I was silent, he was silent, though not in some overly wise and special way, just sitting looking at there river because it was there.

As we explored a bit deeper I could see that it was me who was creating the struggle, the pain and the suffering.

What, I wondered, was on the other side of the resistance I was creating? Dineshji allowed me to see that I could choose to engage in this work with grace, focus, devotion and commitment.

I could use this opportunity of seven hours of undisturbed craft-like work (needs focus and a limited amount of skill but is quite simple and repetitive) each day to focus my mind, to meditate, to give my all.

I was being given the opportunity to engage in life in a whole new way, by offering my work to God, to the ashram, to the community, by giving up my ego, by transcending myself.

I could clean my soul while cleaning the rooms

Holy shit! What was I doing!?

That was it. I changed my attitude.

It took a couple of weeks to fully get under steam but from then on I was #1 in the accommodations department. I would lead the team, do the dirtiest jobs, work the latest, re-organise the store room and generally encourage more silence, longer working hours and a greater dedication from the team.

I am eternally grateful to that wise Sanyasin for not telling me at the start;

“Do this work with focus and love, commit fully and you will reap the benefits.”

Being able to discover this myself was far, far, more powerful. To come to the realisation that resistance and suffering are my choice, after so much time spent struggling and winging and hating it, was truly a revelation.

Where are you showing up with resistance?

What is required from YOU to lean into that resistance and transform this opportunity into a valuable learning experience?

Originally published at chris-hardy.com on October 6, 2015.