The Threefold Regime of Action Yoga

Patanjali: Our actions build up karmic deposits, which will bring fruits either in this or the next life. If action causes karma and karma prevents liberation, why does Patanjali recommend further actions as a means for achieving liberation? This sounds like the sort of fight-fire-with-fire strategy that just leads to a larger conflagration," he says. But if there were a way to remain mentally aloof from the world of action, even while continuing to live fully within that world, then yoga would not be about escaping nature but living with it.