Arbeit macht frei

You may remember the expression 'Arbeit macht frei' from your history class; it translates into 'work sets you free', and was written on the entrance of the German concentration camps. How come that it so often happens that we humans take holy concepts and throw dirt on it. Karma yoga is a concept that the Bhagavad Gita emphasizes and it was thought up a few 1000 years before the Nazi's made a mockery out of it. The Gita's point is that if you you spend every moment of your waking life in the spiritual service of others, and if you tackle your personal mission statement that life dictates you with every fiber of your being, your devotion will set you free. Live the Tao happens to be my battle cry. If you perfectly merge with everyone and everything the Tao throws at you everyday, you have no choice but to live in the now. Along the way you are bound to be exhausted every night when you fall into bed, but you will also lose a piece of your personality blanket every day in the process. The sages of old India were onto something when they discovered that work shall set you free; unfortunately we now need a new way of expressing this idea given its loaded history.