Swami Vivekananda explanation of the meaning of Karma yoga.
The word karma is derived from the Sanskrit kri meaning to do ; all action is karma. Technically, the word also means the effects of actions. In connection to metaphysics, it sometimes means the effects
of which our past actions were the causes. But
in karma yoga, we have simply to do with the word karma as meaning work.
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. Everything we do, physical or mental, is karma and it leaves its marks on us.
We are responsible for what we are; and whatever we wish ourselves to be, we have the power to make ourselves. If what we are now has been the result of our own past actions, it certainly follows that whatever we wish to be in the future can be produced by our present actions; so we have to know how to act.
There is such a thing as frittering away our energies. With regard to karma yoga, the Gita says that it is doing work with cleverness and as a science, by knowing how to work, one can obtain the greatest results.