The word karma is derived from the Sanskrit, "to do" All action is karma. Techniclly this word also means the effects of action. In connection with metaphysics it sometimes means the effects of which our past actions were the causes. But in karma yoa we have simply to do with the word karma as meaning work.

The goal of man kind is knowledge. that is the one ideal placed before us by eastern philosophy. Pleasure is not the goal of man , but knowledge. Pleasure and happiness come to an end. It is a mistake to suppose that pleasure is the goal. Te cause of all the miseries we have in the world is that men foolishly think pleasure to be the ideal to strive for. After a time man finds that it is not happiness, but knowledge. towards which he is going, and that both pleasure and pain are  great teachers, and that he learns as much from evil as from good. As pleasure and pain pass before his soul, they leave upon it different pictures, and the result of these combined impresions is wat is called man's "CHARACTER". If you take the character of any man, it really is but the aggregate of tendencies, the sum total of the bent of his mind. You will find that misery and happiness are equal factors in the formation of that character. Good and evil have equel share in molding character, and in some instancces misery is a greater teacher than happiness.

Now this knowledge , again is inherent in man No knowledge comes from outside; it is all inside. What we say a man knows should, in strict psychological language, but what he discovers or unveils.

What a man learn is realy what he discovers by taking the cover off his own soul, which is a mine of infinite knowledge. We say that Newton discovered gravitation. What it sitting any where in a corner waitingfor him? It was in his own mind. the time came and he find it out. All the knowledge that the world has ever received comes from the mind.

Like fire in a piece of flint, knowledge exists in the mind. Suggestion is the friction that brings it out. So with all our feelings and actions. Our tears and our smiles, our joy and our blessings, our praises and our blames-every one of these we shall fin, if we calml study our own selves, to have been vroughtout from within ourselves by so many blows. The result is what we are. All these blows taken together are called - "KARMA-WORK, ACTION"

Every mental and physical blow that s given to the soul, by which , as it were, fire is struck from it, and by which its own power and knowledge are discovered,is "KARMA"-this word being used in its widest sense. Thus we are all doing karma all the time.

I am talking to you: that is karma. You are listening;that is karma. We breathe: that is karma. We walk: that is karma. Everything we do, physical or mental, is karma, and it leaves its marks on us.