Service is Essential
Karma yoga sadhana is regarding:
You must completely engross and saturate yourself in service. It is no use sitting in a closed room or on the bank of the Ganga and meditating for hours together. How long can you meditate? Ask yourself. Say, for half an hour or an hour at the most. Then your mind will begin to wander, innumerable thoughts will crop up, you will begin to imagine so many useless things and start building castles in the air. You will not be able to control your thoughts or concentrate on your object of meditation. What is the reason for this? Because of your bad Samskaras, because you have no serenity and the mind is always ruffled by worldly thoughts, and-because you have not purified your heart by selfless service. You can purge out your bad Samskaras only through intense selfless service. Then peace and serenity will come and you will have perfect, vigorous meditation.