Being a Karma Yogi: The Path of Karma Yoga

Our spiritual teaching is founded on four pillars – meditation, study, karma yoga and integrating the shadow.  If you feel inspired to develop the pillar of karma yoga, there are many ways you can put this into practice.  Below are some ways you can begin to practice Karma Yoga.

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digital karma yogis
karma yoga community

 Karma Yoga Opportunities

Online Karma Yoga and Dharma training with the Planet Dharma team

For Existing Students:

Did you know there are opportunities for online karma yoga and Dharma training with Planet Dharma’s team of committed and experienced karma yogis?

  • Be of direct service to the teachers, Dharma and Sangha, building generosity and merit.
  • Benefit from working directly and personally with experienced practitioners on that path of karma yoga
  • Uncover blocks, transform patterns, and discover hidden talents.
  • Draw on your karma yoga learning to help your career and livelihood flourish.
  • Learn to discover the clear sky mind in all your actions.

If you are committed to transformation through karma yoga, and willing to build towards five hours of karma yoga per week, contact [email protected] for more information.

Combine retreat and karma yoga with Clear Sky’s new hybrid program

One of the many benefits our having our own base at Clear Sky Retreat Center in the BC Rockies is the opportunity for people to experience karma yoga in a supportive and focused setting. 

For Existing Students:

Another great way to explore this pillar is to join Clear Sky meditation centre's hybrid retreat / karma yoga package.

Designed for students of Doug Duncan and Catherine Pawasarat, this affordable program offers you a way to combine a personal or group retreat followed by a period of karma yoga, benefiting from quality time onsite learning and training with the teachers’ and resident sangha community.

The program also gives the opportunity for you to work remotely at your livelihood so that you don’t have to give up your income to join.

For Newbies:

If you have not yet met the teachers or community, consider applying for the three month immersion program at Clear Sky. Led by senior students, Clear Sky offers a 3 month karma yoga immersion program that we have found to be incredibly transformative for participants. Three Month Karma Yoga Immersion Program

Why Be a Karma Yogi? 

Why would you want to be a karma yogi?  Here are some thoughts from our community of students who practice Karma Yoga.

Its sneaky. Its not always obvious. But Karma Yoga is possibly the most influencial work I’ve done in my life to date. I’ve had many experiences in many countries, and I’ve completed the highest level of education in my field, and yet, I feel my work accomplishments have amounted to very little. Until now.
Dr. Lisa Feder

Ph.D, Professor of Anthropology

Karma yoga has grown me. I’m more engaged with people and the world, I experience far more joy and bliss from simple tasks and interactions. Karma yoga has brought me better states, more compassion and equanimity, and shown me that there’s far more to the world than what’s going in inside my own head!
Andy Rogers

Copywriter and Writing Coach

If you want true, authentic transformative change, I would highly recommend karma yoga and dharma training. It is not for the faint hearted. But actually transforming at depth level isn’t either. For me it cures the desperate superficiality of a consumer life.
Karen McAllister

Money & Transformation Coach, The Mindful Money Coach

Personal Experiences of Karma Yogis:

Much of my life I’ve been a nice guy on the surface, and aggressively competitive underneath.  I wouldn’t like to hold people accountable or get into conflict on one hand; and on the other I would roll over people to get what I wanted.  Particularly through Catherine Sensei’s integrity and compassion, and in the context of the melting pot of working together doing karma yoga with the Sangha to create and grow Clear Sky, I eventually hit a point where this ego strategy simply stopped working.  I had to finally witness these blind spots, and start to see the huge cost this was having on me and others.  This was immensely healing as I began to see these patterns drove so many unhelpful and unhappy patterns in my life.  I’m not sure how I could have brought these crippling blind spots into awareness and start to heal and transform them except by the path of karma yoga and the compassion of my dharma trainers.

Duncan Cryle, Toronto, Canada, 2017

Video: Cara Conroy-Low, Calgary, Canada, 2017

Through Karma Yoga, I have worked through an incredible amount of resistances and blocks. I will always be a work-in-progress, but the biggies have gone. The weight of heavy generational suffering has gone. The self-hate, shame and guilt has lessened a lot. Today, I hardly have a bad day. When I said bad day, I mean, I let things go more quickly, I don’t hold on to things as much as I used to. There is hardly any vague sadness, depression and anxiety with me today. I laugh more. Well, actually, I can laugh today. I don’t take myself so seriously and the tendency to take things personally has decreased a lot. I feel a lot lighter, less of a victim, and feel more confident that I actually have something to contribute to the world.

Karen MacAllister, Toronto, Canada, 2017

Video: Christopher Lawley, Calgary, Canada, 2017

Being part of Planet Dharma’s Karma Yoga team has changed some views I had about Karma Yoga.

  • To observe one’s state of mind while doing Karma Yoga is the key for me. It is about not just blindly ‘doing’. The path, process and experience of ‘doing’ is as important as the results.
  • The process of communicating with my karma yoga colleagues slowly uncovers the blind background programs that are running in the mind and body. I usually love to work alone, doing “my thing”, “my way”. But reflecting with another being is so much faster to uncover the unseen. The ego doesn’t like it very much at the beginning. But more minds simply see more things. It is therefore very enriching.
  • Everything is Karma Yoga, the moment I put awareness into it. When I do that, on a physical and emotional level the sense of prosperity and generosity that I get from Karma Yoga expands into my so called “normal daily life”.

Andrea Netscher, Germany, 2017

Video: Ava MacLean, Calgary, Canada, 2017

I’ve been practicing karma yoga at our retreat centre, Clear Sky for over ten years.  The benefits are ripe – for example now I am more able to see what is needed in the moment and take action to address it. I am less frozen in self conscious thinking. Karma yoga is a practice of not getting stuck in my feelings, emotions, mental thoughts.  I’ve learned to communicate better with my community – keeping team members informed as well as reframing and rephrasing until all parties feel understood.  Rather than staying passive I’ve learned to take control and direct as needed.  I’ve learned to act quickly to listen, problem solve, forgive emotional upsets and move forward to addressing what needs to be addressed.  I don’t get as stuck in views of who is right or wrong. I’m able to take on more responsibility, and get comfortable with both leading and following.

Maureen Smith, BC, Canada, 2017

 

I came to Clear Sky after years of wandering on the path of self-transcendence; I was trying to do it by myself and it just wasn’t working. The teachers at Clear Sky immediately saw my self-imposed limits and provided me with clear, direct instructions on how to really accelerate growth. After putting my personal preferences aside and deciding to work with awakened teachers I have become far more focused and clearer than I could ever have been on my own

Matt O’Rourke

Hydro-Engineer

I have been terrified my whole life to grow and to show up and to be seen. I understand now that through my participation in karma yoga, there has been enough wearing away of the rock by drops of water, drop by drop by drop. I am at a point now where I am saying, “OK, lets do this!” And I don’t think there is any faster process. The karma yoga practice is changing our very chemical make up so that we really are letting ourselves be recreated. I’ve achieved two Bachelor and one Masters degrees and none of my higher education comes close to the profound learning and core depth changes that I have experienced through doing karma yoga. It’s definitely the PhD of life.

Maureen Smith

Counsellor, MBSR Trainer, Alive Mindfully, BC

Since I’ve been active with Karma Yoga, my skills have grown exponentially. My teaching has improved, I have clearer guidelines for students, I insist on accountability, I return assignments on time, I redirect unproductive conversations, I close as many communication loops as possible and so on … I feel like a professional who is on top of her game. So great results are evident. Yay!

Jane Casey

University Instructor

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