It took me four years [1904-1908] of inner striving to find a real Way. even though the divine help was with me all the time, and even then, it seemed to come by an accident; and it too me ten more years of intense Yoga under a supreme inner guidance to trace it out and that was because I had my past and the world's past to assimilate and overpass before I could find and found the future.
To do works in a close union and deep communion with the Divine in us, the Universal around us and the Transcendent above us, not to be shut up any longer in the imprisoned and separative human mind, the slave of its ignorant dictates and narrow suggestions, this is Karma yoga.
Ref: Essays Divine and Human