Kino MacGregor

The Yoga of Daily Life: Living with Yajña, Dāna, Tapas, and Dharma

By Tim Feldmann

Yogas Chitta Vrtti Nirodah

Yoga Sūtra 1.2

In yoga, sometimes we hear that we should stop thinking and doing and just meditate. That daily, trivial activities and even social events, such as our job, public debates, bingo with grandma, shopping with your teenage niece, and so forth, are not required for the yogi aspirant. The Bhagavad Gītā says, hang on a minute! You are a human being living in this world, which means we have responsibilities and actions to take daily.

Stopping those actions does not necessarily mean you are further along the path, a great meditator, or a better yogi. It is not necessarily a yogic act to simply opt out of society and sit in a cave. It is not a yogic act to relocate to a cushion in a cave in the Himalayas, or in other ways remove yourself from the world, if you have to divorce your wife and kids and leave them with no child support to do so. It is not a yogic act to do your asanas on your mat if you need to put earplugs in to dampen the crying of your neighbor in pain so you can balance in Pincha Mayūrāsana.

In the Bhagavad Gītā, Krishna tells Arjuna that acts of yajña, sacrifice or offering, dāna, charity or giving, and tapas, discipline or inner effort, should not be abandoned because they are our purifiers, even for the already wise, or accomplished yogis.

yajña-dāna-tapaḥ-karma
na tyājyaṁ kāryam eva tat
yajño dānaṁ tapas chaiva
pāvanāni manīṣiṇām

Bhagavad Gītā 18.5

So let’s talk about what that means through normal, everyday-life examples.

Yajña: Sacrifice, Selfless Action, or Offering

Yajña is acting selflessly, allowing ourselves to do our work simply because it is our job. We are meant to do it, and by not doing our job, we fail to be of use and service. We do not focus on the reward. The reward is that we did what we were supposed to do. The Gītā calls that an offering.

A teacher educating children sincerely and seeing it as service is yajña. A cobbler doing his job and fixing your shoe is yajña. A yoga teacher showing up for class whether there are fifty students or one is yajña. Cooking for your family or your guests with care, joy, and love, wanting to offer the best meal you can, can become a kind of prayer.

Volunteering to help people in need and offering community service without expecting recognition, praise, or benefits is another expression of yajña. Acts of caring for the environment, cleaning the beach, planting trees, reducing waste, and giving back to nature can also become offerings. God is everywhere.

This overlaps with the next principle.

Dāna: Charity or Giving

Dāna means giving. Yes, it can mean money, but it can also mean time, kindness, or knowledge, offered with humility rather than for show. It means sharing our wealth and our privilege.

Dāna might mean donating to someone in need, supporting someone who helps others in need, or contributing directly to a cause. It can mean sharing your knowledge freely, mentoring a student, showing your neighbor how to fix his gate, or helping a colleague who can benefit from your insights.

It can also be listening patiently to a friend or even a stranger who is in pain or struggling emotionally, offering food to people, birds, or animals, or simply smiling and showing kindness to whoever you meet throughout your day. It is a spirit of small acts of generosity.

Tapas: Self-Discipline and Inner Effort

Tapas is part of the niyamas, the personal observances. It is discipline, inner effort, and the process through which we cultivate the capacity to do the right thing. Tapas involves self-management, principles, focus, the pursuit of truth and kindness, and the willingness to work toward our own growth.

Tapas can mean finding calm and respectfulness even when we are provoked. It can mean waking up early to practice, meditate, pray, or exercise regularly. Our sādhana helps us form this inner discipline. It can also mean fasting or learning to regulate our tendency toward indulgence, whether that involves excess food, screen time, gossip, or something else.

Tapas can mean speaking the truth even when it is uncomfortable, as well as admitting and working with our own personal weaknesses, whether anger, laziness, ego, arrogance, or something else. The yamas become an important guide here.

Yajña, Dāna, and Tapas in Daily Life

Krishna’s point is that yajña, dāna, and tapas are purifiers because they shift our focus from selfish desire toward selfless awareness. These actions help us live in greater harmony with dharma, or right action, while helping the mind remain clear and humble amid the responsibilities of ordinary life.

So what is dharma?

Dharma: Righteous Duty and Right Action

Dharma can be understood as the principle that holds things together, both inside of us and outside of us. It asks what is right, just, and aligned with truth. What creates mutual benefit? What contributes to harmony internally and externally?

Dharma also points toward our true purpose, the path that aligns with our inner nature and serves harmony in our lives. It includes a sense of duty and morality, but also the process of uncovering and living in alignment with the deeper calling of the soul and expressing our unique qualities selflessly. When we follow our dharma, our actions can support both personal growth and a larger sense of balance.

Dharma is personal, but it is also interconnected with the whole. When we live in alignment with our true purpose, our actions naturally affect the people and world around us. In this way, fulfilling our individual dharma contributes to collective dharma. Each person’s right action, done consciously and selflessly, strengthens the greater web of life.

When we choose not to follow our personal and collective dharma and instead uplift the selfish tendencies that we all carry, we create the conditions for inner conflict, confusion, and suffering. Our thoughts, actions, and purpose begin to move out of alignment with our deeper values. That internal friction inevitably ripples outward into our relationships, our work, and the world around us.

Yogic philosophy teaches that ignoring dharma does not bring punishment from outside. Rather, we experience the natural consequences of living in friction with the world and with ourselves. We feel the struggle until we begin to realign with what is true and right.

Bringing Yoga Off the Mat

Our yogic practices, asana, chanting, meditation, pranayama, and the many other tools of the tradition, are meant to help us discover these things for ourselves. Through practice, we learn more about who we are. We begin to see what actually works and does not work in our lives, what creates lasting happiness and peace, and what continually leads us back toward conflict and suffering.

Yoga is not an escape from daily life. The practice gives us tools to participate in life with greater clarity, responsibility, generosity, discipline, and awareness. That is where yajña, dāna, tapas, and dharma become more than philosophical ideas. They become the yoga of daily life.

If you’d like to explore these teachings through practice, join me every Wednesday on Omstars for live Pranayama. The breath gives us a direct way to work with attention, discipline, and the inner qualities that yoga asks us to cultivate, not only on the mat, but in the way we live each day.