One common misunderstanding of karma yoga would have it that it’s about being of service to others. While this view isn’t wrong per se, it largely misses the essential point, which is that it has to do with letting action come without resistance or fetishization while knowing that one is the eternal witness of all activities.

Let’s unpack this last statement.

To begin with, such a yogi asks, “What is the proper domain with which karma yoga is concerned?” Considering that bhakti yoga’s domain is devotional love and that jnana yoga’s is Self-knowledge, one is naturally led to wonder about the proper domain for karma yoga. And the name gives this away: such a practitioner is, just because of his spiritual temperament which is oriented toward action, disposed to care about the field of action.

Second, then what is the first lesson of karma yoga? It is that one is to see through attachments and aversions vis-a-vis actions. Accept, for the moment, that one is the doer. Accept, furthermore, that one’s proper domain is that of action. Then the commonest hangup is to want good outcomes and to seek to avoid bad ones–whether these outcomes be for others, for the welfare of all beings, or even for oneself. The hook is that one wants X and resists not-X. Because of this hook, karma yoga first says: “Act–but renounce all ideas about gaining. Act–but renounce all ideas about resistance.” This is, of course, at the heart of Krishna’s teaching to Arjuna.

We might avail ourselves, here, of a jnana yoga approach to karma yoga. For early on, attachments and aversions will show up and thus can be illuminatingly inquired into. Am I watching the attachments? And I am observing the aversions? If that’s really the case, then am I beyond or out of these attachments and aversions?

Third, the second lesson takes the practitioner one step further. Now one is to renounce the doer identity. To be sure, doings continue to happen–but is there a doer that’s doing them? Granting, for now, that doings naturally flow, the question is: “Was ever any doer that’s doing anything? Was I ever a doer?”

It’s not enough, at this juncture, to mentally recite neti neti: “I’m not the doer; I’m not the enjoyer.” One needs to take one’s stand as the witness and truly see that actions are in no sense “mine” and also that there is no ego I “behind” or “in the midst” of the doing.

Fourth, at this point, it becomes clear that there aren’t even doings; there are just happenings happening. And these happenings aren’t happening because of me or to me or with me or in spite of me. They’re all me-less arisings. This, we might say, is the essence of wu wei: the Sage “acts non-acts.”

Thanks to jnana yoga, one can then take the final step and see that nothing ever really happened. Yes, no one ever did anything, but also not a thing ever actually happened. Such is the teaching of ajata (no origination or no manifestation), a teaching that’s said to be final or ultimate.