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Integral Yoga
S. SATCH: Yes, yes, yes.
L.M.: But one shouldn't be discouraged. What if the mind is very active and scattered?
S. SATCH: Again, it depends also on your day-to-day activities, how involved you are--how much you are attached to your activities. If the mind is attached to them, it will not stay put in your meditation. You have to reduce the attachments in the outside world, though you don't have to be completely detached. If your outside activities are being performed for personal reasons, then the attachment is more.
L.M.: We need to reattach the mind inwardly.
S. SATCH: Yes, inwardly—and also, outward activities—mostly, you should do them for the sake of others. That is a selfless action, which we call karma yoga. Karma is what you do for your own sake; you don't worry about others.
L.M.: Selfishly, acting selfishly.
S. SATCH: You put yourself first. Karma yoga is putting others first.
L.M.: That's what Lord Krishna means in the Bhagavad Gita in his teachings on karma yoga.
S. SATCH: Yes, karma yoga—when your entire life is built on serving others, your mind is under control. It is selfishness that disturbs the mind.
L.M.: A very good point. Meditation—concentration leading to meditation—is the cultivating of that unselfishness, that self-lessness.
S. SATCH: Apart from the practice of meditation, your day-to-day life should be regulated like that: making sure that you do everything as a service to others.
L.M.: There is also a kind of atmosphere of meditation and service we could develop in the larger part of the day when we are not meditating.
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