What we mean by karma in ordinary life and Karma in Karma Yoga are different. We generally identify karma with our office work that is done for a particular period of time daily except on the holidays. But in the spiritual sense, in the sense of Karma Yoga, things are different. Karma Yoga is all-inclusive. This is about spiritualisation of the whole life and not dividing life into spiritual and material compartments.
In Karma Yoga, the works we do are not as important as the consciousness from which we do them. Karma Yoga requires change of consciousness, going from ordinary consciousness to a higher consciousness. When the consciousness is changed then life is changed. When life is changed the works we do may not change, but the spirit in which we work changes. Then all works become Karma Yoga and all life becomes Yoga.
Karma Yoga demands one thing: we must live in the higher consciousness and we must not allow the mind to come down to the ordinary consciousness. This is difficult and this change needs a long time to become accomplished. This change is difficult because this involves overcoming the gravitational forces of nature that try to pull us down to the ordinary consciousness. Mind resists such changes fiercely.
To do Karma Yoga in the true sense, we must live a new life, renouncing the old life, life now founded on the new consciousness, ego being abolished, the work becoming a spiritual offering, everything in life being reoriented to the realisation of God.
