Hi Ananda:
The dynamic involved in samyama, prayer, karma yoga and even self-inquiry, is that all of these things find their effectiveness and fruition in the rise of abiding inner silence.
Before then, these kinds of activities will be more involved with mind, emotions and the flow of energies back and forth. Then they are more transactional (this for that, one object for another), rather than "relational in stillness," which is an endless outpouring. The outpouring is the result of the application of the principles of samyama, which underlies all of these practices mentioned. It is the rise of stillness in action on all levels of our daily life.
Do energies still flow when we are moving into stillness, when it is the process of samyama - intentions surrendered in stillness? Yes, and we may see some depletion, or challenging karma flowing. At the same time, the further we progress in our practices and our inner purification and opening, the less we will be touched as these reactions occur, and we will learn to self-pace when the reactions are too much.
As we grow with our practices and their effects in daily living, there will be a mixture in the purity of our actions, gradually evolving toward more outflowing of stillness in action, and less action producing reaction. We will know by the increasing joy we find before, during and after our spontaneous acts of service, and fewer challenging karmic reflections coming back. This is another way of saying that the more advanced we become, the more we can handle.
Another way of looking at this process of transformation is as a rising innate ability to transform all karmas in and around us to a more immediate evolutionary purpose. Then it will not matter what karma is coming back. It will automatically be transformed into a positive influence, and not weigh on us as before. That is the power of mature abiding inner silence that has been activated and is moving in daily living. This is discussed in the AYP Bhakti and Karma Yoga book.
Along the way at every stage on our path, we are called according to our capacity, and usually more. We do all that we can, and self-pace the rest, so we can come back to serve another day.
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All the best!
The guru is in you.
