Karmic Yoga and Charity - Being the Compassionate Warrior
By John Gilmore

A long time ago I did a lot of social justice work. We used to call it transformational work, because it helped to transform the society. Other work that often fell under the category of social justice work was charity. Charity was providing help to those in need. It was dealing with the immediate problems of pain and suffering, without really working to change the institutions in our society that made poverty possible.

In the social justice world there was always a battle between the charity camp and the transformational camp. When one does Karmic Yoga though, it doesn’t matter if one is doing charity, or doing transformational work. Karmic Yoga is a spiritual practice. It is the giving of oneself to a project for the betterment of the people in which you come in contact. The foundation of Karmic Yoga is love. This love can be seen, readily, in Mathew Fox’s example of the greater work as expressed in the biblical concept of compassion.

The definition of the biblical concept of compassion, according to Fox, went through a slight change during the development of the Christian church. In the biblical sense, compassion meant two things. The prefix meant with other people. Working for the people that you are helping creates and imbalance of power, and makes them seem weaker and more needy. It also makes you seem superior, like a little king or queen who is being kind to the poor peasants. The volunteer is often satisfied because she is helping poor people. The problem is that this satisfaction can perpetuate poverty and oppression, because the identity of the helper will be threatened when the people don’t need help anymore. This often happens. Anger and resentment occur when the helpers are no longer needed. It creates very unhealthy relationships. Many of the charities that work for the poor will only exist as long as poor people exist. That is why it important to work with those in need, not for those in need.