Karma yoga is a vision. It is something that we ought to practice in our lives. This vision comes from the rsis, the ancient seers, who gave us the Veda. The word rşi is translated as 'seer." Everybody sees what the eyes see, but a rşi sees more than what the eyes can ever see. He sees the truth and he gives expression to that truth, and naturally does so in his native language. If the seer is from America, like the philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, the 'Sage of Concord,' he would express his vision in English. And if the visionary is from ancient India, the vision would naturally be expressed in the language of that time, which was Vedic Sanskrit. The vision is in the form of spiritual laws that were discovered by these visionaries. When all of these laws are collected together, it is called Veda. The root of the word Veda is vid which means 'concerning knowledge.2 The Veda is an embodiment of knowledge.

In the Bhagavad Gita, which conveys the vision of the Veda, Sri Krishna is a seer and a teacher. Sri Krishna is a popular figure, particularly in India. But this figure is not the same as the universal teacher of the Gita. That is why we make a distinction between 'Gita Krishna,' the Sri Krishna we find in the Bhagavad Gita, and 'Radha Krishna,' the Sri Krishna of Puranic stories. Swami Vivekananda went to the extent of advising, "... read them the Gita and other sacred books.

**Contents and Sample Pages**