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VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY Eight Lectures on Karma Yoga Paperback – 1 December 2022
by SWAMI VIVEKANANDA (Author)
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Vedanta Philosophy: Eight Lectures on Karma Yoga (the Secret of Work) (Classic Reprint) Hardcover – 22 April 2018
by Swami Vivekananda (Author)
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Excerpt from Vedanta Philosophy: Eight Lectures on Karma Yoga (the Secret of Work)
Karma Yoga proclaims the dignity of la bor in a way peculiarly its own, and has words of help and encouragement for all grades of toilers in the world's great work shop.
To those who imagine that Vedanta teaches but one road to salvation, this book will be a revelation. Its language is un mistakable when it asserts over and over again that same height of spiritual realiza tion that is reached by him who gives up the world, is also attained by him who. Knows how to live in the world and be not of it.
Karma Yoga admits the necessity of work, but shows us how to be free from its bondage, how to work as masters, not as slaves. We can so transmute our com monest actions into spiritual treasure, as to glorify existence and make it a gateway to Paradise.
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CONTENTS
1] Karma in its Effect on Character.
2] “Each is Great in His Own Place.”
3] The Secret of Work.
4] What is Duty?
5] We Help Ourselves, not the World.
6] Non-Attachment is Complete Self-Abnegation.
7] Freedom.
8] The Ideal of Karma Yoga.
VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY EIGHT LECTURES ON KARMA YOGA
VI
HE WORD Karma is fully explained in the text of this book,
but possibly it may not be out of place to give a brief idea
of what is meant by Yoga. This word, which sounds strange
to Western ears, is nevertheless an old friend in a foreign dress.
Its literal meaning is “To join,” and it has the same root (Yug)
behind it as our own familiar word “yoke.” When Yoga is used
technically, it signifies union of the human with the Divine, and
the particular name given to that union (or Yoga) stands for the
method by which it is attained. Hence, Karma Yoga means the
endeavor to reach Divine realization through unselfish work.
Karma Yoga might be called “applied ethics” in the highest
sense, rather than a merely theoretical system. This book is
intended to give an insight into the manner of so performing
the inevitable tasks of daily life as to lift our lives out of the
region of the humdrum and the commonplace and make
them pathways to the loftiest heights of spiritual realization.
It presents its own solution of the eternal problem how we,
too, "can make our lives sublime," and gives an uplift to human
endeavor on even the humblest planes.
Karma Yoga proclaims the dignity of labor in a way peculiarly
its own, and has words of help and encouragement for all grades
of toilers in the world's great workshop.
VII
To those who imagine that Vedänta teaches but one road
to salvation, this book will be a revelation. Its language is
unmistakable when it asserts over and over again that same
height of spiritual realization that is reached by him who gives
up the world, is also attained by him who knows how to live in
the world and be not of it.
Karma Yoga admits the necessity of work, but shows us
how to be free from its bondage, how to work as masters, not
as slaves. We can so transmute our commonest actions into
spiritual treasure, as to glorify existence and make it a gateway
to Paradise.
THE EDITOR.
l.
KARMA IN ITS EFFECT ON
CHA
====
Full text of "Vedanta Philosophy Eight Lectures On Karma Yoga Secret Of Work By Swami Vivekananda"
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AIS
KARMA YOGA
KARMA YOGA
WRITINGS
Address by Swami Vivekananda on "The Ideal of a Universal Religion”
Vedanta Philosophy: Lectures by the Swami Vivekananda on “The Cosmos”
Vedanta Philosophy: Lecture by the Swami Vivekananda on “The Atman”
Vedanta Philosophy: Lecture by the Swami Vivekananda on “The Real and Apparent
Man”
Vedanta Philosophy: Lecture by the Swami Vivekananda on “Bhakti Yoga”
The Vedanta Philosophy: An Address Before the Graduate Philosophical Society of
Harvard University
Vedanta Philosophy: Eight Lectures by the Swami Vivekananda on Karma Yoga (The
Secret of Work)
Vedanta Philosophy: Lectures by the Swami Vivekananda on Raja Yoga and Other
Subjects
My Master
Vedanta Philosophy: Lectures by the Swami Vivekananda on Jnana Yoga
VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY
EIGHT LECTURES ON
KARMA YOGA
THE SECRET OF WORK
Delivered under the Auspices of the Vedanta Society
1896
SWAMI VIVEKANANDA
1863-1902
{A
YOGEBOOKS: HOLLISTER, MO
2013:09:01:20:35:28
Hl
VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY EIGHT LECTURES ON KARMA YOGA
COPYRIGHT
YOGeBooks by Roger L. Cole, Hollister, MO 65672
O 2010 YOGeBooks by Roger L. Cole
All rights reserved. Electronic edition published 2010
ISBN: 978-1-61183-026-2 (PDF)
ISBN: 978-1-61183-027-9 (EPUB)
www.yogebooks.com
CONTENTS
O EDER Karma in its Effect on Character.
[ERROR ERBEN ÓN “Each is Great in His Own Place.”
|| tapes a The Secret of Work.
IV —— ———M———— What is Duty?
| We Help Ourselves, not the World.
MES iaa Non-Attachment is Complete Self-Abnegation.
DA ———————— Freedom.
LJ eR REN The Ideal of Karma Yoga.
VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY EIGHT LECTURES ON KARMA YOGA
VI
PREFACE.
HE WORD Karma is fully explained in the text of this book,
but possibly it may not be out of place to give a brief idea
of what is meant by Yoga. This word, which sounds strange
to Western ears, is nevertheless an old friend in a foreign dress.
Its literal meaning is “To join,” and it has the same root (Yug)
behind it as our own familiar word “yoke.” When Yoga is used
technically, it signifies union of the human with the Divine, and
the particular name given to that union (or Yoga) stands for the
method by which it is attained. Hence, Karma Yoga means the
endeavor to reach Divine realization through unselfish work.
Karma Yoga might be called “applied ethics” in the highest
sense, rather than a merely theoretical system. This book is
intended to give an insight into the manner of so performing
the inevitable tasks of daily life as to lift our lives out of the
region of the humdrum and the commonplace and make
them pathways to the loftiest heights of spiritual realization.
It presents its own solution of the eternal problem how we,
too, "can make our lives sublime," and gives an uplift to human
endeavor on even the humblest planes.
Karma Yoga proclaims the dignity of labor in a way peculiarly
its own, and has words of help and encouragement for all grades
of toilers in the world's great workshop.
VII
VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY EIGHT LECTURES ON KARMA YOGA
To those who imagine that Vedänta teaches but one road
to salvation, this book will be a revelation. Its language is
unmistakable when it asserts over and over again that same
height of spiritual realization that is reached by him who gives
up the world, is also attained by him who knows how to live in
the world and be not of it.
Karma Yoga admits the necessity of work, but shows us
how to be free from its bondage, how to work as masters, not
as slaves. We can so transmute our commonest actions into
spiritual treasure, as to glorify existence and make it a gateway
to Paradise.
THE EDITOR.
VIII
KARMA YOGA
KARMA YOGA
l.
KARMA IN ITS EFFECT ON
CHARACTER.
everything that is done is Karma. Technically, this word
also means the effects of actions. In connection with
metaphysics it sometimes means the effects of which our past
actions were the causes. But in Karma Yoga we have simply
to do with the word “Karma” as meaning work. The goal of
all mankind is knowledge; that is the one ideal placed before
us by the Eastern philosophy. Pleasure is not the goal of man,
but knowledge. Pleasure and happiness come to an end. It is
the mistake of mankind to suppose that pleasure is the goal;
the cause of all the miseries we have in the world is that men
foolishly think pleasure to be the ideal. After a time man finds
that it is not happiness, but knowledge, towards which he is
going, and that both pleasure and pain are great teachers, that
he learns as much from evil as from good. As pleasure and pain
pass before his soul they leave upon it different pictures, and
the result of these combined impressions is what is called man’s
“character.” If you study the character of any man, what is it
really but the tendencies, the sum total of the bent of his mind?
3
T: WORD Karma is derived from the Sanskrit “Kri,” to do;
KARMA YOGA
You will find that misery and happiness were equal factors in
the formation of that character. Good and evil have an equal
share in moulding character, and in some instances misery is a
greater teacher than happiness. In studying the great characters
that the world has produced | dare say that, in the vast majority
of cases, it was misery that taught more than happiness; it
was poverty that taught more than wealth; it was blows that
brought out the inner fıre, more than praise.
Now this knowledge, again, is inherent in man; no knowledge
comes from outside; it is all within. What we say a man “knows,”
should, in strictly psychological language, be a man “discovers;”
what a man "learns" is really what a man "discovers, the
word discover meaning "he takes the covering from his own
soul,” which is a mine of infinite knowledge. We say Newton
discovered gravitation. Was it sitting anywhere in a corner
waiting for him? It was in his own mind; the time came and he
found it out. All knowledge that the world has ever received
comes from the mind; the infinite library of the universe is in
your own mind. The external world is simply the suggestion, the
occasion, which sets you to study your own mind, but the object
of your study is always your own mind. The falling of an apple
gave the suggestion to Newton, and he studied his own mind;
he rearranged all the previous links of his mind and discovered
a new link among them, which we call the law of gravitation.
It was not the apple nor anything in the centre of the earth.
All knowledge, secular or spiritual, is in the human mind. In
many cases it is not discovered, but remains covered, and when
the covering is being slowly taken off we say "we are learning,"
and the advance of knowledge is made by the advance of this
process of uncovering. The man from whom this veil is being
lifted is the more knowing man; the man upon whom it lies
thick is ignorant, and the man from whom it has entirely gone
is the all-knowing, the omniscient. There have been omniscient
men, and, | believe, will be yet, and that there will be myriads
in the cycles to come. Like fire in a piece of flint, knowledge is
4
KARMA IN ITS EFFECT ON CHARACTER.
existing in the mind; the suggestion is the friction that brings
out that fire. So with all our actions—our tears and our smiles,
our joys and our griefs, our weeping and our laughter, our curses
and our blessings, our praises and our blames— with every one
of them we find, if we calmly study our own selves, that they
have been brought out by so many blows. The result is what
we are; all these blows taken together are called “Karma,” work.
Every mental and physical blow that is given upon the soul to
strike out the fıre, to discover its own power and knowledge, is
Karma, Karma being used in its universal sense; so we are doing
Karma all the time. | am talking to you; that is Karma. You are
listening; that is Karma. We breathe; that is Karma. We walk;
Karma. We talk; Karma. Everything we do, physical or mental,
is Karma, and is leaving its marks upon us.
There are certain works which are, as it were, the aggregate,
the sum total, of a large number of small works. If we stand near
the seashore and hear the waves dashing against the shingle we
think it is such a great noise, and yet we know that one wave is
really composed of millions and millions of minute waves; each
one of these is making a noise, and yet we do not catch the
sound of them; it is only when they become the big aggregate
that we catch it. So every pulsation of the heart is making
work; certain works we feel, and they become tangible to us;
they are, at the same time, the aggregate of a number of small
works. If you really want to judge the character of a man look
not at his great works. Every fool becomes a hero at one time
or another. Watch a man do his most common actions; those
are the things which will tell you the real character of a great
man. Great occasions rouse even the lowest of human beings
to greatness, but he is a really great man whose character is
great always, the same wherever he be.
This Karma in its effect on character is the most tremendous
power that man has to deal with. Man is a centre, as it were, and
he is attracting all the powers of the universe towards himself,
and in this centre is fusing them all and ejecting them again
5
KARMA YOGA
in a big current. That centre is the real man, the almighty, the
omniscient, and he draws the whole universe towards him; good
or bad, misery or happiness, all running towards him, clinging
round him, and out of them he fashions the tremendous power
called character and throws it outwards. As he has the power
of drawing in anything, so he has the power of throwing it out.
All the actions that we see in the world, all the movements
in human society, all the works that we have around us, are
simply the display of thought, the manifestation of the will
of man. Machines or instruments, or cities, ships, men-of-war,
everything is simply the manifestation of the will of man, and
this will is made by character, and character is manufactured
by Karma. As is Karma, so is the manifestation of the will. The
tremendous willed men that the world has produced have
all been tremendous workers—gigantic souls, with wide wills,
powerful enough to overturn worlds; and they got that by
persistent work, through ages and ages. Such a gigantic will
as that of a Buddha or a Jesus cannot be got in one life, for
we know who their fathers were. It is not known that their
fathers ever spoke a word for the good of mankind. Millions
and millions of carpenters like Joseph have gone; millions are
still living. Millions and millions of petty kings like Buddha's
father have been in the world. If it is only a case of hereditary
transmission, how do you account for this little petty prince,
who was not, perhaps, obeyed by his own servants, producing
this son, whom half a world worships? How do you account
for this gap between the carpenter and his son, whom millions
of human beings regard as God? It cannot be accounted for
by that theory. This gigantic will which Buddha threw over the
world, which came out of Jesus, whence did it come? Whence
came this accumulation of power? It must have been there
through ages and ages, continually growing bigger and bigger,
until it burst on society in a Buddha or a Jesus, and it rolls down
even to the present day.
KARMA IN ITS EFFECT ON CHARACTER.
And all this is determined by Karma, work. No one can get
anything except he earns it; this is an eternal law; we may think
it is not so, but in the long run we shall be convinced of it. A
man may struggle all his life in becoming rich; he may cheat
thousands, but he finds at last that he did not deserve it, and
his life becomes a trouble and a nuisance to him. We may go
on accumulating for our physical enjoyment, but only what we
earn is ours. A fool may buy all the books in the world, but they
will be in his library, and he will only be able to read those he
deserves, and this deserving is produced by Karma. Our Karma
determines what we deserve and what we can assimilate. We are
responsible for what we are, and whatever we want ourselves
to be we have the power to make ourselves. If what we are now
has been made by our own past actions it certainly follows that
whatever we want to be we can make ourselves by our present
actions; so we have to know how to act. You will say, “What is
the use of learning how to work? Every one works in this world.”
But there is such a thing as frittering away our energies. With
regard to this Karma Yoga, in the Bhagavad Gitä it is said that
Karma Yoga is doing work, but with cleverness and as a science;
knowing how to do work that will bring the greatest results.
You must remember that all this work is simply to bring out
the power of the mind which is already there, to wake up the
soul. The power is inside every man, and the knowledge is there;
these different works are like blows to bring it out, to cause this
giant to wake up.
A man works for various motives; there cannot be work
without a motive. Some people want to get fame, and they
work for fame. Others want to get money, and they work for
money. Others want power, and they work for power. Others
want to get to heaven, and they work to get to heaven. Others
want to leave a name when they die, as they do in China, where
no man gets a title until he is dead; that is a better way, after all.
When a man does very good things they give a title of nobility
to his father, who is dead, or to his grandfather. Some of the
7
KARMA YOGA
Mohammedan sects work all their lives to have a gigantic
tomb when they die. | know sects among whom, as soon as
a child is born, they begin to prepare for his tomb; that is the
greatest work a man has to do, and the bigger and finer the
tomb the better off the man is supposed to be. Others work
as a penance; do all sorts of wicked things, then erect a temple,
or give something to the priests to buy them off and give them
a passport to heaven. They think that will clear them and that
they will go scot-free. These are some of the various motives
for work.
Work for work's sake. There are a few who are really the salt of
the earth in every country and who work for work's sake, who
do not care for name, or fame, or to get to heaven. There are
others who do good to the poor and help mankind from still
higher motives, because it is good, and they love good. Desires
for name and fame seldom bring immediate results; as a rule,
they come to us when we are old and are done with life. If a
man works without any selfish motive in view what becomes
of him? Does he not gain anything? Yes, he is the highest gainer.
Unselfishness pays more, only people have not the patience to
practise it. It is more paying in physical value also. Love, and
truth, and unselfishness are not only moral figures, but are
the highest ideals, because they are such manifestations of
power. In the first place, a man who can work for five days, or
for five minutes, without any selfish motive whatever, without
thinking of the future, or heaven, or punishment, or anything
of the kind, becomes a giant. It is hard to do it, but in the heart
of our hearts we know the value of it, and what good it brings.
It is the greatest manifestation of power and a tremendous
restraint; to restrain is a manifestation of more power than all
outgoing action. A carriage with four horses may rush down a
hill without restraint; or, the coachman may restrain the horses.
Which is the greater manifestation of power, to let them go or
to restrain them? A cannon-ball flying through the air goes a
long distance and then falls. Another is cut short in its flight
8
KARMA IN ITS EFFECT ON CHARACTER.
by striking against a wall, and intense heat is generated. So, all
this outgoing following a selfish motive, goes away; it will not
return to you, but if it be restrained it will develop. Restraint
will produce a gigantic will, that character which makes a world
move. Foolish men do not know the secret; they want to rule
mankind. Man does not know that he can rule the whole world
if he waits. Let him wait a few years, restrain that foolish idea
of governing, and when that idea is wholly gone that man will
be a power in the world. But we are such fools! The majority of
us cannot see beyond a few years, just as animals cannot see
beyond a few steps. Just a little narrow circle; that is our world.
We have not the patience to look beyond and thus we become
immoral and wicked. It is our weakness, our powerlessness.
But the lowest sorts ofwork are not to be despised. Let a man
who knows no better, work for selfish ends, for name and fame;
but a man should always try to get towards the higher motive
and to understand what that motive is. Krishna tells us in the
Gita, "To work you have the right, but not to the fruits thereof.”
Leave the fruits alone, leave results alone. Why care for results?
When wanting to help a man, never think what that man's
attitude should be towards you. Do not care to understand. If
you want to do a great or a good work, do not trouble to think
what the results will be.
There comes another difficult question with this sort of work.
Intense activity is necessary; we must always work. We cannot
live a minute without work. What becomes of rest? Here is
one side of life-struggle work, to be whirled rapidly round in
the current of social life. And here is another picture—calm,
retiring, everything peaceful around you, very little of noise,
only nature. Neither of them is a perfect picture. If a man goes
to live in such a place as soon as he is brought in contact with
the surging whirlpool of the world he will be crushed by it;
just as the fish that lives in the deep sea water, as soon as it is
brought to the surface, breaks into pieces; the weight of water
on it had kept it together. Can a man who has been used to the
9
KARMA YOGA
turmoil and the rush of life live if he comes into a quiet place?
He will suffer and perhaps lose his mind. Very few are able to
bear entire solitude. The ideal man is he who in the midst of
the greatest silence finds the intensest activity and in the midst
of the intensest activity finds the silence of the desert. He has
learned the secret of restraint; he has controlled himself. He
goes through the streets of a big city, with all their traffıc, and
his mind is as calm as if he were in a cave, where not a sound
could reach him, and he is working intensely all the time. That
is the ideal of Karma Yoga, and if you have attained to that you
have really learned the secret of work.
But we have to begin from the beginning, to take up the
works as they come to us and slowly make ourselves more
unselfish every day. We must do the work and find out the
motive power that is behind, prompting us to the work, and,
almost without exception, in the first years, we will find that
the motives are always selfish, but gradually this selfishness will
melt, by persistence, and at last will come the time when we
shall be able to do really unselfish work. We all hope that some
time or other, as we struggle through the path of life, there will
come a time when we shall become perfectly unselfish, and the
moment we attain to that, our powers will be concentrated,
and the knowledge which is ours will become manifest.
10
ll.
“EACH IS GREAT IN HIS OWN
PLACE.’
CCORDING TO the Sankhya philosophy, nature is
composed of three materials, called, in Sanskrit, Sattva,
Rajas and Tamas. Tamas is typified as darkness or
inactivity; Rajas as activity, where each particle is trying to fly
off from the attracting centre, and Sattva is the equilibrium
of the two, getting a control of both. Each man is composed
of these three materials; in each of us we find that sometimes
the Tamas prevails; we become lazy; we cannot move; we are
inactive, bound down by certain ideas. At other times activity
will prevail, and at still other times that calm control of both
will prevail—the Sattva. Again, in different men, one of these
materials is generally predominant. The characteristic of one
man is that of inactivity, dullness and laziness; the characteristic
of another man is activity, power, manifestation of energy, and
in still another man we find the sweetness, calmness, gentleness,
which are controlling both. So in creation—in animals, plants
and men—we find the typification of all these different
materials.
11
KARMA YOGA
Karma Yoga has specially to deal with these three elements.
By teaching us what they are and how to employ them it helps us
to do our work better. Human society is a graded organization.
We all know about morality, and we all know about duty, but
at the same time we find that in various countries morality
differs greatly. What is regarded as moral in one country may in
another be considered perfectly immoral. Yet we have the idea
that there must be a universal standard of morality. So it is with
duty. The idea of duty varies much among different nations.
Two ways are left open to us—the way of the ignorant, who
think that there is only one way to truth, and that all the rest are
wrong, or the way of the wise, who admit that, according to the
mental constitution or the different plane of existence in which
we are, duty and morality may vary. The important thing is to
know that there are gradations of duty and of morality—that
what is the duty of one state of life in one set of circumstances
will not be that of another.
The following example will serve to illustrate:—All great
teachers have taught "resist not evil" —that non-resisting evil
is the highest ideal. We all know that if a certain number of
us attempted to put that into practice the whole social fabric
would fall to pieces, society would be destroyed, the wicked
would have possession of our properties and our lives and
would do whatever they liked with us. Even if only one day of
such non-resistance were practised it would lead to the utter
dissolution of society. Yet, intuitively, in our heart of hearts we
feel the truth of the teaching, "resist not evil" This seems to us
to be the great ideal; yet to teach this doctrine only would be
equivalent to condemning a vast proportion of mankind. Not
only so, it would be making men feel that they were always
doing wrong, cause scruples of conscience in all their actions; it
would weaken them, and that constant self-disapproval would
breed more vice than any other weakness. To the man who has
begun to hate himselfthe gate to degeneration has been opened,
and so with a nation. Our first duty is not to hate ourselves; to
12
"EACH IS GREAT IN His OWN PLACE.”
advance we must have faith in ourselves first and then in God.
He who has no faith in himself can never have faith in God.
Therefore, the only alternative remaining to us is to recognize
that duty and morality vary under different circumstances;
not that the man who resists is doing something wrong, but
that in the different circumstances in which he is placed it may
become his duty to resist.
In reading the Bhagavad Gitä many of you in Western
countries may have felt astonished at the second chapter,
when Krishna calls Arjuna a hypocrite and a coward because
of his refusal to fight or offer resistance on account of his
adversaries being his friends and relatives, making the plea that
non-resistance was the highest ideal of love. The great lesson
to learn is that the two extremes are alike; the extreme positive
and the negative are always similar; when the vibrations of
light are too slow we do not see them, nor do we see them
when they are too rapid. So with sound; when very low we do
not hear, when very high we do not hear. In like manner is the
difference between resistance and non-resistance. One man
does not resist because he is weak, lazy, and cannot, and not
because he will not; the other is the man who, knowing that he
can strike an irresistible blow if he likes, not only does not strike,
but blesses his enemies. The one who resists not from weakness
commits a sin, and as such will not receive any benefit from
his non-resistance, while the other would commit a sin by
offering resistance. Buddha gave up his throne and renounced
his position; that was true renunciation; but there cannot be
any question of renunciation in the case of a beggar who has
nothing to renounce. So we must always take care, when we
speak of this non-resistance and ideal love, what we really
mean. We must first take care to understand whether we have
the power of resistance or not. Then, having the power, if we
renounce and do not resist, we are doing a grand act, but if we
cannot resist and at the same time try to deceive ourselves that
we are actuated by motives of the highest love we are doing
13
KARMA YOGA
the exact opposite. So Arjuna became a coward at the sight of
the mighty array against him; his “love” made him forget his
duty towards his country and king. That is why Krishna told
him that he was a hypocrite— "Thou talkest like a wise man,
but thy actions betray thee to be a coward; therefore, stand up
and fight!”
Such is the idea of the Karma Yogi. The Karma Yogi is the
man who understands that the highest ideal is non-resistance,
but who also knows that this is the highest manifestation of
power, and that what is called “resisting evil” is but a step on
the way towards the manifestation of the highest power, which
is non-resistance. Before having attained the highest ideal
his duty is to resist; let him work, let him fight, let him strike
straight from the shoulder. Then only, when he has gained the
power to resist, will non-resistance be a virtue.
Inactivity should be avoided by all means. Activity always
means resistance. Resist all evils, mental and physical, and when
you have succeeded in resisting, then will calmness come. It is
very easy to say, “hate not anybody, resist not any evil,” but we
know what that means. When the eyes of society are turned
towards us we may make a show of non-resistance, but in
our hearts it is canker all the time. We feel the want of it; we
feel that it would be better to resist. If you desire wealth and
you know that the whole world will tell you that he who aims
at wealth is a very wicked man, you, perhaps, do not dare to
plunge into the struggle for wealth, yet at the same time the
mind is running day and night after money. This is hypocrisy
and will serve no purpose. Plunge into the world, and then, after
a time, when you have enjoyed all that is in it, will renunciation
come; then will calmness come. So fulfil your desire for power
and everything else, and after you have fulfilled the desire will
come the time when you will know that these are very little
things; until you have fulfilled this desire, until you have passed
through that activity, it is impossible for you to come to that
state of calmness and serenity. These ideas of serenity have
14
"EACH IS GREAT IN His OWN PLACE.”
been preached for thousands of years; everybody born has
heard them from childhood, and yet we see very few in the
world that have really reached that stage. | do not know if |
have seen twenty persons in my life who were really calm and
non-resisting, and | have travelled over half the world.
Every man should take up his own ideal and endeavor to
accomplish it; that is a surer way than taking up other men's
ideals, which he can never hope to accomplish. For instance,
we take a child and at once give him the task of walking twenty
miles; either the little one dies or one in a thousand may crawl
the twenty miles, to reach the end exhausted and half dead.
That is what we generally try to do with the world. All men and
women, in any society, are not of the same mind, or capacity,
and have not the same power to understand things; they must
have different ideals, and we have no right to sneer at any ideal.
Let every one do the best he can for his own ideal. | should
not be judged by yours or you by mine. The apple tree should
not be judged by the standard of the oak nor the oak by that
of the apple. To judge the apple tree you must take the apple
standard and for the oak its own standard, and so with all of us.
Unity in variety is the plan of creation. However men and
women may vary individually, there is unity in the background.
The different individual characters and classes of men and
women are natural variations in the law of creation. Hence, we
ought not to judge them by the same standard or put the same
ideal before them. Such a course creates only an unnatural
struggle, and the result is that man begins to hate himself and
is hindered from becoming religious and good. Our duty is
to encourage every one in his struggle to live up to his own
highest ideal and strive to make this ideal as near as possible to
the truth. In the Hindu morality we find that this fact has been
recognized from very ancient times, and in their Scriptures and
books on ethics different rules are laid down for the different
classes of men, for the householder, the Sannyäsin (the man
who has renounced the world) and the student.
15
KARMA YOGA
The life of every individual, according to the Hindu Scriptures,
has its peculiar duties apart from what belongs to universal
humanity; to each stage of life certain duties are attached by
its own nature. No one of these stages of life is superior to the
other; the life of the married man is quite as great as that of
the man who is not married, but who has devoted himself to
religious work. The king on his throne is as great and glorious as
the scavenger in the street. Take him off his throne, make him
do the work of the scavenger and see how he will fare. Take
the scavenger and see how he will rule. It is useless to say that
the man who lives out of the world is a greater man than he
who lives in the world; it is much more difficult to live in the
world and worship God than to give it up and live a free and
easy life. The householder marries and carries on his duties as
a citizen, while the duties of the man who gives up the world
are to devote his energies only to religion. If a man goes out of
the world to worship God he must not think that those who
live in the world and work for the good of the world are not
worshipping “God; neither must those who live in the world,
for wife and children, think that those who give up the world
are low vagabonds. Each is great in his own place.
This thought I will illustrate by a story. A certain king used to
inquire of all the Sannyäsins that came to his country, “Which
is the greater man—he who gives up the world and becomes a
Sannyäsin, or he who lives in the world and performs his duties
as a householder?” Many wise men sought to solve the problem.
Some asserted that the Sannyásin was greater, upon which the
king demanded that they prove their assertion. When they
could not he ordered them to marry and become householders.
Then others came and said, “The householder who performs his
duties is the greater man.” Of them, too, the king demanded
proofs. When they could not give them he made them also
settle down as householders.
At last there came a young Sannyásin, and the king inquired
of him. He answered, “Each, O king, is equally great in his place.”
16
"EACH IS GREAT IN His OWN PLACE.”
"Prove this to mes” replied the king. "I will prove it to you,” said
the Sannyäsin, "but you must first come and live as I do for a
few days, that | may be able to prove to you what I say.” The king
consented and followed the Sannyäsin out of his own territory
and passed through many territories, until they came to another
kingdom. In the capital of that kingdom a great ceremony was
going on. The king and the Sannyäsin heard the noise of drums,
and music, and criers; the people were assembled in the streets
in gala array, and a great proclamation was being made. The
king and the Sannyäsin stood there to see what was going on.
The crier was saying that the princess, daughter of the king of
that country, was about to choose a husband from among
those assembled before her.
It was an old custom in India for princesses to choose
husbands in this way, and each one had certain ideas of the
sort of man she wanted for a husband; some would have the
handsomest man; others would have only the most learned;
others would havethe richestand soon. The princess, in the most
splendid array, was carried on a throne, and the announcement
was made by criers that the princess so-and-so was about to
choose her husband. Then all the princes of the neighborhood
put on their bravest attire and presented themselves before her.
Sometimes they, too, had criers to enumerate their advantages
and the reasons why they hoped the princess would choose
them. The princess was carried around and looked at them and
heard what they had to offer, and if she was not pleased she
said to her bearers, “Move on,” and no more notice was taken of
the rejected suitors. If, however, the princess was pleased with
any one of them she threw a garland upon him, and he became
her husband.
The princess of the country to which the king and the
Sannyásin had come was having one of these ceremonies. She
was the most beautiful princess in the world, and the husband
of the princess would be ruler of the kingdom after her father's
death. The idea of this princess was to marry the handsomest
17
KARMA YOGA
man, but she could not find the right one to please her. Several
times these meetings had taken place, and yet the princess had
not selected anyone. This meeting was the most splendid of
all; more people than ever had come to it, and it was a most
gorgeous scene. The princess comes in on a throne, and the
bearers carry her from place to place. She does not care for any
one, and every one becomes disappointed that this meeting
also is to be broken up without any one being chosen. Just
then comes a young man, a Sannyäsin, handsome as if the sun
had come down to the earth, and he stands in one corner of
the assembly, watching what is going on. The throne with the
princess comes near him, and as soon as she sees the beautiful
Sannyásin she stops and throws the garland over him. The
young Sannyäsin seizes the garland and throws it off, exclaiming,
“What nonsense you mean by that; | am a Sannyásin. What is
marriage to me?” The king of that country thinks that perhaps
this man is poor, so does not dare to marry the princess, so he
said to him, “With my daughter goes half my kingdom now and
the whole kingdom after my death!” and he puts the garland
again on the Sannyásin. The young man threw it off once more,
saying, "What nonsense is this? | do not want to marry,’ and
walked quickly away from the assembly.
Now the princess had fallen so much in love with this young
man that she said, “| must marry this man or I shall die” and
she went after him to bring him back. Then the other Sannyäsin,
who had brought the king there, said to the king, "King, let us
follow this pair," so they walked after them, but a good distance
behind. The young Sannyásin who had refused to marry the
princess walked out into the country for several miles, when he
came to a forest and struck into it, and the princess followed
him, and the other two followed them. Now the young
Sannyäsin was well acquainted with that forest and knew all
the intricate passages in it, and suddenly he jumped into one
of these and disappeared, and the princess could not discover
him. After trying for a long time to find him she sat down under
18
"EACH IS GREAT IN His OWN PLACE.”
a tree and began to weep, for she did not know the way to get
out of the forest again. Then the king and the other Sannyásin
came up to her and said, “Do not weep; we will show you the
way out of this forest, but it is too dark for us to find it now.
Here is a big tree; let us rest under it, and in the morning we will
go early and show you the road to get out.”
Now a little bird and his wife and three little baby birds lived
on that tree, in a nest. This little bird looked down and saw the
three people under the tree and said to his wife, “My dear, what
shall be done; here are some guests in the house, and it is winter,
and we have no fire?” So he flew away and got a bit of burning
firewood in his beak and dropped it before the guests, and they
added fuel to it and made a blazing fire. But the little bird was
not satisfied. He said again to his wife, “My dear, what shall we
do; there is nothing to give these people to eat, and they are
hungry, and we are householders; it is our duty to feed anyone
who comes to the house. | must do what I can. | will give them
my body.” So he plunged down into the midst of the fire and
perished. The guests saw him falling and tried to save him, but
he was too quick for them and dashed into the fire and was
killed.
The little bird's wife saw what her husband did, and she said,
“Here are three persons and only one little bird for them to eat.
It is not enough; it is my duty as a wife not to let my husband's
effort be in vain; let them have my body also,’ and she plunged
down into the fire and was burned to death. Then the three
baby birds, when they saw what was done, and that there was
still not enough food for the three guests, said, "Our parents
have done what they could and still it is not enough. It is our
duty to carry on the work of our parents; let our bodies go, too,”
and they all dashed down into the fire also. The three people
could not eat these birds, and they were amazed at what they
saw. Somehow or other they passed the night without food,
and in the morning the king and the Sannyásin showed the
princess the way, and she went back to her father.
19
KARMA YOGA
Then the Sannyäsin said to the king, “King, you have seen that
each is great in his own place. If you want to live in the world
live like those birds, ready at any moment to sacrifice yourself
for others. If you want to renounce the world be like that young
man to whom the most beautiful woman and a kingdom were
as nothing. If you want to be a householder hold your life a
sacrifice for the welfare of others, and if you choose the life of
renunciation do not even see beauty, and money, and power.
Each is great in his own place, but the duty of the one is not the
duty of the other.”
20
IIl.
THE SECRET OF WORK.
needs, is indeed great, but the help is greater when
the need is greater and the help is more far-reaching. If
a man’s wants for an hour can be removed it is helping him
indeed, but if his wants can be removed for a year it will be
more help to him, and if his wants can be removed forever it
is the greatest help that can be given. Spiritual knowledge is
the only thing that can remove our miseries forever; any other
knowledge satisfies wants only for a time. If the nature of the
man be changed, then alone all his wants will vanish forever. It
is only with the knowledge of the spirit that the faculty of want
is annihilated forever, so helping man spiritually is the highest
help that can be given to him; he who gives man spiritual
knowledge is the greatest benefactor of mankind, and as such
we always find that they were the most powerful of men who
have helped man in his spiritual needs, because it is the basis
of all other works in life. A spiritually strong and sound man
will be strong in every other respect, if he wishes, and until
there is spiritual strength in mankind even the physical needs
cannot be satisfied. Next to spiritual comes intellectual help;
the gift of knowledge is a far higher gift than that of food and
21
| | OTHERS physically, by relieving their physical
KARMA YOGA
clothes; it is higher, even, than giving life to a man, because the
real life of man consists of knowledge; ignorance is death, and
knowledge is life. Life is of very little value if it is a life in the dark,
groping through ignorance and misery. Next in order comes, of
course, helpinga man physically. So, in considering the helping
of others, we must always strive not to commit the mistake
of thinking that physical help is the only help that can be
given; physical help is the last and the least, because there is no
permanent satiation. The misery that | feel when | am hungry
is satisfied by eating, but hunger returns again; misery can only
cease when | am satisfied beyond all want. Then hunger will not
make me miserable; no distress, no misery, no sorrow will be
able to move me. So that help which tends to make us strong
spiritually is the highest help; next to it comes intellectual help
and after that physical help.
The miseries of the World cannot be cured by simply physical
help; until man's nature changes these physical needs will
always arise, and miseries will be always felt, and no amount
of physical help given to the world will cure that misery. The
only solution of the problem of all this misery in the world
is to make mankind pure. Ignorance is the mother of all the
evil and all the misery we see. Let men have light, let them be
spiritually strong, and if we can accomplish this, if all mankind
becomes pure and spiritually strong and educated, then alone
will misery cease in the world and not before then. We may
convert every house in the country into a charity asylum; we
may fill che lands with hospitals, but the misery will still exist
until man's character changes.
We read in the Gitä again and again that we must all work
incessantly, but all work must be composed of good and evil;
we cannot do any work which has not some part of good
somewhere; there cannot be any work which will not injure
some one somewhere. Every work must necessarily be a mixture
of good and evil; yet we are told to work incessantly; the good
and evil will both have their results, make their Karma; the good
22
THE SECRET OF WORK.
action will entail upon us good effect; the bad action bad effect,
but good and bad are both bondages of the soul. The solution
reached in the Gitä is that if we do not attach ourselves to the
work it will not take any effect on us. We will try to understand
what is meant by this “non-attachment” to work.
It is the one central idea in the Gita; work incessantly, but be
not attached to it. “Samskara” can be translated very nearly by
the word tendency. Using the simile of a lake for the mind, every
ripple, every wave that rises in the mind when it subsides does
not die out entirely, but leaves a mark and a future possibility
of that wave coming out again. This mark, with the possibility
of the wave reappearing, is what is called Samskára. Each work
that we do, each movement of the body, each thought in the
mind, is leaving such an impression on the mind stuff, and even
when they are not obvious on the surface, these marks are
sufficiently strong to work beneath the surface, sub-consciously.
What we are each moment is determined by the sum total of
these impressions on the mind. What | am just at this moment
is the effect of the sum total of these marks, of my past life.
This is really what is meant by character; each man's character
is determined by the sum total of these impressions. If good
impressions prevail, that character becomes good; if bad, that
character becomes bad. Ifa man continuously bears bad words,
thinks bad thoughts, does bad actions, his mind will be full
of these impressions, or marks, and they, unconsciously, will
govern the tendency of his work. In fact, these impressions are
always working, and the expression will be evil; that man will be
a bad man; he cannot help it; the sum total ofthese impressions
will create the strong motive power for doing bad actions; he
will be a machine in the hands of his impressions, and they will
force him to do evil. Similarly, if a man thinks good thoughts
and does good works the sum total of these impressions will be
good, and they, in a similar manner, will force him to do good
in spite of himself. When a man has done so much good work
and thought so many good thoughts that there is an irresistible
23
KARMA YOGA
tendency in his nature to do good in spite of himself, then, even
if he thinks he will do evil, the mind, in the sum total of its
tendencies, will not allow him to do so; the tendencies will turn
him back; he is at the mercy of his good tendencies. When that
is the case that man's character is said to be established.
As the tortoise tucks his feet and head inside of his shell, and
you may kill him and break him in pieces, yet they will not come
out, even so the character of that man who has control over
his centres and organs is established. By this continuous reflex
of good thoughts, good impressions moving over the surface
of the mind, the tendency becomes strong for good, and the
result is that we control the "Indriyas" (the sensory and motor
organs). Then alone will the character be established; then
alone you get to truth; that man is safe forever; he cannot do
any evil; you may throw him anywhere; you may put him in any
company; there will be no danger for him. There is a still higher
stage than having this good tendency, the desire for liberation.
You must remember that freedom of the soul is the goal of all
these Yogas, and each one equally leads to the same result. Just
by work, men can get where Buddha got by meditation and
Christ by prayer. Buddha was a Jnani; Christ was a Bhakta, but
the same goal was reached. The difficulty is here. Liberation
means entire freedom—freedom from the bondages of good,
as well as from the bondages of evil. A golden chain is as much
a chain as an iron chain. There is a thorn in my finger, and I use
another thorn to take the first thorn out, and when I have taken
it out | throw both thorns aside; | have no necessity for keeping
the second thorn, because both are thorns, after all. So the bad
tendencies are to be counteracted by the good tendencies, and
the bad marks of the mind should be conquered by fresh waves
of good marks, until those that are evil almost disappear, or are
subdued and held in control in one corner of the mind; but
after that, the good tendencies have also to be conquered; the
"attached" must become “unattached.” Work, but let not the
action or the thought produce a deep impression on the mind;
24
THE SECRET OF WORK.
let the ripple come; let huge actions proceed from the muscles
and the brain, but let them not make any deep impression on
the soul. How can that be done? We see that the impression of
any action to which we join ourselves remains.
| may meet hundreds of persons during the day, but | meet
one | love, and when | retire at night | may try to think of all the
faces, but that face comes which | met only for one minute, and
which | loved, and all the others have vanished. My attachment
to this particular person caused a deeper impression on my
mind than all the other faces. Physiologically, the impressions
have all been the same; every one of these faces that | saw
pictured itself on the retina, and the brain took the picture in,
and yet there was no similar effect upon the mind. But in the
case of that man, of whom | caught, perhaps, only a glimpse, a
deeper impression was made, because the other faces found no
association in my mind; most of them, perhaps, were entirely
new, faces about which | never thought before, but that one
face, of which | got only a glimpse, found associations inside.
Perhaps I had pictured him for years, knew hundreds of things
about him, and this one new thing found hundreds of kindred
things inside my mind, and all these associations were aroused;
the impression on my mental vision was a hundred times more
than the seeing of all those different faces together, and, such
being the case, a deep impression will be immediately made
upon the mind.
Therefore, be "unattached;" let things work; let brain centres
work, work incessantly, but let not a ripple conquer the mind.
Work as if you were a stranger in this land, a sojourner; work
incessantly, but do not bind yourselves; bondage is terrible. This
world is not our habitation, it is only one of the many stages
through which we are passing. Remember that great saying of
the Sankhya Philosophy, “The whole of nature is for the soul,
not the soul for nature.” The very reason of nature’s existence
is for the education of the soul; it has no other meaning; it is
there because the soul must have knowledge, and through
25
KARMA YOGA
knowledge will free itself. If we remember this always we shall
never be attached to nature; we shall know that nature is a
book in which we are to read, and when we have gained that
knowledge the book itself ceases to be of value to us. Instead of
that, however, we are identifying ourselves with nature; we are
thinking that the soul is for nature, just as the common saying
is that one man “lives to eat” and another “eats to live;” we are
continually making this mistake; we are regarding nature as
ourselves and are becoming attached to it, and as soon as this
attachment comes there is this deep impression on the soul,
which binds us down and makes us work like slaves.
The whole gist of this teaching is that you should work like
a master and not as a slave; work incessantly, but not slave’s
work. Do you not see how everybody works? Nobody can
rest; ninety-nine per cent of mankind work as slaves, and the
result is misery; it is selfish work. Work through freedom! Work
through love! The word love is very difficult to understand; it
never comes until there is freedom. There is no love in the slave.
If you buy a slave and tie him down in chains and make him
work for you he will work like a drudge, but there will be no
love. So when we ourselves work for the world as slaves, there
is no love, and it is not true work. The same applies to our work
for our relatives and friends, even for our own selves. Suppose
a man loves a woman; he wishes to have her all to himself and
feels extremely jealous about her every moment; he wants
her to sit near him, to stand near him and eat and move at
his bidding. He is a slave to her. That is not love; it is a sort of
morbid affection ofthe slave, insinuating itself as love. It cannot
be love, because it is painful; if she does not do what he wants
it brings pain. With love there is no painful reaction; love only
brings a reaction of bliss; if it does not it is not love; we are
mistaking something else for love. When you have succeeded
in loving your husband, your wife, your children, the whole
world, the universe, in such a manner that there is no reaction
26
THE SECRET OF WORK.
of pain, or jealousy, no selfish feeling, then you are in a fıt state
to be unattached.
Krishna says, “Look at me, Arjuna! If | stop from work for
one moment the whole universe will die. Yet | have nothing
to gain from the universe, | am one Lord. | have nothing to
gain from the universe; but why do | work? Because | love the
world.” God is unattached because He loves; that real love
makes us unattached. Wherever there is this attachment, this
tremendous clinging, you must know it is physical, a sort of
physical attraction between particles of matter and other
particles of matter, something that attracts two bodies nearer
and nearer all the time, and if they cannot get near it becomes
painful; but where there is real love it does not count on
physical attachment at all. That body may be a thousand miles
distant, love is all the same; it does not die; there will never be
a painful reaction.
To attain this non-attachment is almost a life work, but as
soon as we have reached this point, we have attained the goal
and become free. The bondage of nature falls from us, and we
see nature as it is; she forges no more chains for us. We stand
entirely free and take not the results of work into consideration.
Why care what may be the results, either good or bad? The man
who works through freedom does not care for the results. Do
you ask anything from your children in return for what you
have given them? It is your duty to work for them, and there
it stops. Whatever you do for a particular person, a city, or a
State, do it, but assume the same attitude as you have towards
your children—expect nothing. If you can incessantly take that
position that you are a giver, that everything given by you is a
free offering to the world, without any thought of return, that
will be work which will not bring attachment. Attachment only
comes when we expect something.
This idea of complete self-sacrifice is illustrated in the
following story:—After the battle of Kurukshetra the five Pándu
brothers held a great sacrifice and made very large gifts to the
27
KARMA YOGA
poor. Allthe people expressed amazement at the greatness and
richness of the sacrifice and said that such a sacrifice the world
had never seen before. But, after the ceremony, there came a
little mongoose; half his body was golden, and the other half
was brown, and he began to roll himself on the floor of the
sacrificial hall. Then he said to those around, “You are all liars;
this is no sacrifice" “What!” they exclaimed, "you say this is no
sacrifice! Do you not know how money and jewels were poured
out upon the poor and everyone became rich and happy? This
was the most wonderful sacrifice any man ever made.” But the
mongoose said, "There was once a little village, and in it there
dwelt a poor Brahmin, with his wife, his son and his son's wife.
They were very poor and lived on alms gained in preaching and
teaching, for which men made little gifts to them.
"There came in that land a three years' famine, and the poor
Brahmin suffered more than ever. At last for five days the
family starved, but on the fifth day the father brought home a
little barley flour, which he had been fortunate enough to find,
and he divided it into four parts, one for each of them. They
prepared it for their meal, and just as they were about to eat ita
knock came at the door. The father opened it, and there stood
a guest. In India a guest is sacred; he is as a god for the time
being, and must be treated as such. So the poor Brahmin said,
‘Come in, sir; you are welcome. He set before the guest his own
portion of food, and the latter quickly ate it up and then said,
‘Oh, sir, you have killed me; | have been starving for ten days,
and this little bit has but increased my hunger! Then the wife
said to her husband, 'Give him my share, but the husband said,
‘Not so. The wife, however, insisted, saying, 'Here is a poor man,
and it is our duty as householders to see that he is fed, and it is
my duty as a wife to give him my portion, seeing that you have
no more to offer him. Then she gave her share to the guest; and
he ate it up and said he was still burning with hunger. So the
son said, 'Take my portion also; it is the duty of a son to help his
father to fulfil his obligations. The guest ate that, but remained
28
THE SECRET OF WORK.
still unsatisfied; so the son's wife gave him her portion also. That
was sufficient, and the guest departed, blessing them.
"That night those four people died of starvation. A few grains
of that flour had fallen on the floor, and when | rolled my body
on them half of it became golden, as you see it. Since then |
have been all over the world, hoping to find another sacrifice
like that, but never have | found one; nowhere else has the
other half of my body been turned into gold. That is why | say
this is no sacrifice."
29
KARMA YOGA
30
WHAT Is DUTY?
IV.
WHAT IS DUTY?
naturally, the question, “What is duty?” If | have to do
something | must first know my duty, and then I can do it.
The idea of duty, again, is very different in different nations. The
Mohammedan says what is written in his book, the Qur’an, is
his duty; the Hindu says what is in his book, the Vedas, is his
duty, and the Christian says what is in his Bible is his duty. So we
find that there must be varied ideas of duty, differing according
to different states in life, different periods and different
nations. The term “duty, like every other universal abstract
term, is impossible to define; we can only get an idea of it by
describing the surroundings and by knowing its actions and
its results. To make an objective definition of duty would be
entirely impossible; there is no such thing as objective duty. Yet
there is duty from the subjective side. Any action that makes us
go godward is a good action, and is our duty; any action that
makes us go downward is an evil action. There is only one idea
which is universal for all mankind, of any age, sect or country,
and that has been summed up in the Sanskrit aphorism:— "Do
not injure any being; non-injuring any being is virtue; injuring
any being is vice.”
| IS necessary to know what work is, and with that comes,
31
KARMA YOGA
One point we ought to remember is that we should always
try to see the duty of others through their eyes, and never
judge the customs of other races or other peoples by our own
standard. This is the great lesson to learn. “| am not the standard
of the universe. | have to accommodate myself to the world,
and not the world to me.” Therefore we see that environments
will change our duties, and doing in the best way that duty
which is ours at a certain time is the best thing we can do in this
world. Let us do that duty which is ours by birth, and when we
have done that do the duty which is ours by our position. Each
man is placed in some position in life, and must do the duties of
that position first. There is one great difficulty in human nature,
that man never looks at himself. He thinks he is quite as fit to
be on the throne as the king. Even if he is, he must first show
that he has done the duty of his own position, and when he has
done that, higher duty will come to him.
Later on we will find that even the idea of duty will have to
be changed, and that the greatest work is only done when there
is the least motive urging us from behind. Yet it is work through
duty that leads us to work without any idea of duty; when work
will become worship— nay, higher, work will stand alone for its
own sake. But that is the ideal, and the way lies through duty.
We shall find the philosophy behind all duties, either in the
form of ethics or love, is the same as that in every other Yoga—
attenuating the lower self, so that the real Self may shine; to
circumscribe the frittering away of energies on the lower planes
of existence, so that the soul may manifest itself on the higher
planes. This is accomplished by the continuous denial of low
desires, a denial which duty rigorously requires. The whole
organization of society has thus been developed, consciously
or unconsciously, as the land of actions, the field of experience,
where, by limiting the desires of selfishness, we open the way to
an unlimited expansion of the real nature of man.
Duty is seldom sweet. It is only when love oils its wheels
that it runs smoothly; else it is a continuous friction. What
32
WHAT ıs DUTY?
parents can do their duties to their children? What children
to their parents? What husband to his wife? What wife to her
husband? Do we not meet with cases of friction every day in
our lives? Duty is sweet only through love, love shines alone in
freedom; yet is it freedom to be a slave to the senses, to anger,
to jealousies and a hundred other petty things that must occur
every day in human life? In all these little roughnesses that we
meet with in life the highest expression of freedom is to forbear.
Women, slaves to their own irritable, jealous tempers, are apt to
attribute the blame to their husbands, and assert their freedom,
as they think, not knowing that they are only proving that they
are slaves. So with husbands who are continually finding fault
with their wives.
Chastity is the first virtue in man or woman, and the man
who, however he may have strayed away, cannot be brought to
the right path by a gentle and loving and chaste wife, is indeed
very rare. This world is not yet as bad as that. We hear much
about brutal husbands all over the world and the impurity
of men, but it is true that there are quite as many brutal and
impure women as men. If allwomen were as good and pure as
their own constant assertions would lead people to believe, |
am perfectly satisfied that there would not be one impure man
in the world. With whom could men become impure? What
brutality is there which purity and chastity cannot conquer?
A good, chaste wife, who thinks of every other man except her
own husband as her child and has the attitude of a mother
toward all men, will grow so great in the power of purity that
there will not be a single man, however brutal, who will not
feel an atmosphere of holiness in her presence. Similarly every
husband must look upon all women, except his own wife, in the
light of his own mother or daughter or sister. That man, again,
who wants to be a teacher of religion must look upon every
woman as his mother, and always behave toward her as such.
The position of the mother is the highest in the world, as
it is the one place in which to learn and exercise the greatest
33
KARMA YOGA
unselfishness. The love of God is the only love that is higher
than mother’s love; all others are lower. It is the duty of the
mother to think of her children first and then of herself. But,
instead of that, if the parents are always thinking of themselves
first, the result is that the relation between parents and children
becomes as the relation between the birds and their offspring,
who, as soon as they are fledged, cease to recognize any parents.
Blessed, indeed, is the man who is able to look upon woman as
the representative of the Motherhood of God. Blessed, indeed,
is the woman to whom man represents the Fatherhood of
God. Blessed are the children who look upon their parents as
Divinity manifested on earth.
The only way to rise spiritually is by doing the duty that is
in our hands now, and making ourselves stronger and going
higher, until we reach the highest state. Nor is duty to be
slighted. A man who does the lower work is not, therefore, a
lower man than he who does the higher work. A man should
not be judged by the nature of his duties, but by the manner in
which he does them. His manner of doing them and power to
do them is the test of a man. A shoemaker who can turn out a
strong, well-made pair of shoes in the shortest time is a better
man according to his works than a would-be professor who
talks nonsense every day of his life.
A certain young Sannyäsin went to a forest and there
meditated and worshipped and practised Yoga for a long time.
After twelve years of hard work and practice, he was one day
sitting under a tree, when some dry leaves fell upon his head.
He looked up and saw a crow and a crane fighting on the top of
the tree, and they made him very angry. He said: —“What! You
dare throw those dry leaves upon my head!" and as he looked
upon them with anger, a flash of fire burst from his head—the
Yogi's power—and burnt the birds to ashes. He was very glad;
he was almost overjoyed at this development of power; he
could burn, at a glance, the crow and the crane. After a time he
had to go into the town to beg his bread. He came and stood
34
WHAT is DUTY?
at a door and said:—“Mother, give me food.” A voice came
from inside the house:—"Wait a little, my son.” The young man
thought:—"You wretched woman, dare you make me wait!
You do not know my power yet.” While he was thinking this
the voice came again:— "Boy, don't be thinking too much of
yourself. Here is neither crow nor crane.” He was astonished;
still he had to wait. At last a woman came, and he fell at her
feet and said:—"Mother, how did you know that?" She said:—
"My boy, | do not know your Yoga or your practices. | am a
common, everyday woman, but | made you wait because my
husband is ill, and | was nursing him, and that was my duty. All
my life | have struggled to do my duty. As a daughter, when |
was unmarried, | did my duty, and now, when | am married, |
still do my duty; that is all the Yoga | practise, and by doing my
duty I have become illumined; thus, | could read your thoughts
and know what you had done in the forest. But if you want to
know something higher than this go to such and such a town
and to the market, and there you will find a butcher, and he
will tell you something that you will be very glad to learn.” The
Sannyäsin thought:—"Why go to that town and to a butcher"
(Butchers are the lowest class in our country; they are called
Chandálas; they are not touched because they are butchers;
they do the duty of scavengers, and so forth.)
But after what he had seen his mind was opened a little, so
he went, and when he came to the city he found the market,
and there saw, at a distance, a big, fat butcher slashing away at
animals, with big knives, and bargaining with different people.
The young man said, "Lord, help me, is this the man from whom
| am going to learn? He is the incarnation of a demon, if he
is anything" In the meantime this man looked up and said,
“Swämi, did that lady send you here? Take a seat until | have
finished my business.” The Sannyäsin thought, "What comes to
me here?" but he took a seat and the man went on, and after he
had finished all his selling and buying, took his money and said
to the Sannyásin, “Come here, sir; come to my home.”
35
KARMA YOGA
So they went there and the butcher gave him a seat and
said, “Wait there.” Then he went into the house and there were
his father and mother. He washed them and fed them and did
all he could to please them, and then came and took a seat
before the Sannyásin and said, “Now, sir, you are come here to
see me; what can | do for you?” Then this great Sannyásin asked
him a few questions about the soul and God, and this butcher
gave him a lecture which is a very celebrated book in India, the
“Vyadha Gita,” and is to be found in the Mahabharata, the great
Indian epic. It is one of the highest flights in the Vedanta, the
highest flight of metaphysics. You have heard of the Bhagavad
Gitä, Krishna’s sermon. When you have finished that you should
read the “Vyadha Gita,” it is an epitome of Vedanta philosophy.
When the butcher had finished the Sannyásin was astonished.
He said, “Why are you in that body, with such knowledge as
yours? Why are you in a butcher's body, and doing such filthy,
ugly work?" "My son,” replied the Chandäla, “no duty is ugly, and
no duty is impure. My birth placed me in these circumstances
and environments. In my boyhood | learned the trade; | am
unattached, and | try to do my duty well. | try to do my duty as
a householder, and | try to do all | can to make my father and
mother happy. | neither know your Yoga, nor have become a
Sannyásin; never went out of the world, nor into a forest, but
all this has come to me through doing my duty in my position.”
There is a sage in India, a great Yogi, one of the most wonderful
men | have seen in my life. He is a peculiar man; he will not teach
anyone; if you ask him a question he will not answer. It is too
much for him to take the position of a teacher; he will not take
it. If you ask a question, and if you wait for some days, in the
course of conversation, he will bring the subject out himself, and
wonderful light he will throw on it. He told me once the secret
of work, and what he said was, “Let the end and the means be
joined into one, and that is the secret of work.” When you are
doing work, do not think of anything beyond. Do it as worship,
and the highest worship, and devote your whole life to it for
36
WHAT ıs DUTY?
the time being. Thus, in this story, the butcher and the woman
did their duty with cheerfulness, and wholeheartedness, and
willingness, and the result was that they became illuminated,
clearly showing that the right performance of the duties of any
station, and being non-attached, lead to the highest realization.
37
KARMA YOGA
38
V.
WE HELP OURSELVES, NOT THE
WORLD.
UR DUTY to others means helping others, doing good
O): the world. Why should we do good to the world?
Apparently to help the world, but really to help
ourselves. We should always try to help the world; that should
be the highest motive power in us; but, when we analyze it
properly, we shall find that this world does not require our help.
This world was not made that you or | should come and help
it. | once read a sermon in which was said:—“All this beautiful
world is very good because it gives us time and opportunity
to help others.” Apparently, it was a very beautiful sentiment,
but, in one sense, it was a curse, for is it not a blasphemy to
say that the world needs our help? We cannot deny that there
is much misery in it; to go out and help others is, therefore,
the highest motive power we have, although, in the long run,
we shall find that it is only helping ourselves. As a boy | had
some white mice. They were kept in a little box and had little
wheels made for them, and when the mice tried to cross the
wheels, the wheels turned and turned, and the mice never got
anywhere. So with the world and our helping it. The only help
39
KARMA YOGA
is, that you get exercise. This world is neither good nor evil; each
man manufactures a world for himself. If a blind man begins
to think of it, it is either as soft or hard, or cold or hot. We are
a mass of happiness or misery; we have seen that hundreds of
times in our lives. As a rule, the young are optimistic and the old
pessimistic. The young have all life before them, and the old are
complaining that their day is gone. Hundreds of desires, which
they cannot fulfill, are struggling in their brains. Life is at an end
for them. Both are foolish. This life is neither good nor evil. It is
according to the different states of mind in which we look at
the world. The most intelligent man would call it neither good
nor evil. Fire, by itself, is neither good nor evil. When it keeps
us warm we say: —“How beautiful is fire!” When it burns our
fingers we blame the fire. Still, it was neither good nor bad. As
we use it, it produces that feeling of good or bad, and so is this
world. It is perfect. By perfection is meant that it is perfectly
fitted to meet its ends. We can all be perfectly sure that it will
go on, and that it does not need any help from us.
Yet we must do good. It is the highest motive power we have,
knowing all the time it is a privilege to help. Do not stand on a
pedestal and take five cents and say, “Here, my poor man,” but
be grateful that the poor man is there, so that by giving to him
you are able to help yourself. It is not the receiver that is blessed,
but the giver. Be thankful that you are allowed to exercise
your power of benevolence and mercy in the world, and thus
become pure and perfect. All good acts tend to make us pure
and perfect. What can we do at best? Build a hospital, make
roads, or erect charity asylums! We may organize a charity and
collect two or three millions of dollars, build a hospital with
one million, with the second give balls and drink champagne,
and of the third let the officers steal half, and the rest may
finally reach the poor, but what are these? One mighty wind, in
five minutes, can break it all up. What shall we do then? One
volcanic eruption can sweep away all our roads, and hospitals,
and cities and buildings. Let us give up all this foolish talk of
40
WE HELP OURSELVES, NOT THE WORLD.
doing good to the world. It is not waiting for your or my help, yet
we must work and constantly do good, because it is a blessing
to ourselves. That is the only way we can become perfect. No
beggar ever owed a single cent to us, we owe everything to him,
because he has allowed us to exercise our powers of pity and
charity on him. It is entirely wrong to think that we have done,
or can do good to the world, or have helped such and such
people. It is a foolish thought, and all foolish thoughts bring
misery. We think we have helped some one and expect him to
thank us, and, because he does not, unhappiness comes to us.
Why expect anything? If we were really unattached, we should
escape all this pain of vain expectation, and could do good work
in the world. Never will unhappiness or misery come through
work done without attachment. This world will go on with its
happiness and misery through eternity.
There was a poor man who wanted some money, and,
somehow, he had heard that if he could get hold of a ghost or
some spirit, he could command him to bring money or anything
he liked; so he was very anxious to get hold of a ghost. He went
about searching for a man who would give him a ghost, and
at last he found a sage, with great powers, and besought this
sage to help him. The sage asked him what he would do with a
ghost. “I want a ghost to work for me; teach me how to get hold
of one, sir, | desire it very much,” replied the man. But the sage
said, "Don't disturb yourself, go home.” The next day the man
went again to the sage and began to weep and pray. "Give me a
ghost; | must have a ghost, sir, to help me!” At last the sage was
disgusted, and said, "Take this charm, repeat this magic word,
and a ghost will come, and whatever you say to this ghost he
will do. But beware; they are terrible beings, and must be kept
continually busy. If you fail to give him work he will take your
life” The man replied:—"That's easy; | can give him work for
all his life" Then he went to a forest, and after long repetition
of the magic word, a huge ghost appeared before him, with
big teeth, and said:—"l am a ghost. | have been conquered by
41
KARMA YOGA
your magic. But you must keep me constantly employed. The
moment you stop | will kill you.” The man said:— "Build me a
palace," and the ghost said, "It is done; the palace is built!’ "Bring
me money,” said the man. "Here is your money,” said the ghost.
“Cut this forest down, and build a city in its place.” “That is
done,” said the ghost; “anything more?” Now the man began
to be frightened and said: —“l can give him nothing more to
do; he does everything in a trice" The ghost said: —“Give me
something to do or | will eat you up.” The poor man could find
no further occupation for him, and was frightened. So he ran
and ran and at last reached the sage, and said:—“Oh, sir, protect
my life!” The sage asked him what was the matter, and the man
replied: —“I have nothing to give the ghost to do. Everything |
tell him to do he does in a moment, and he threatens to eat me
up if | do not give him work.” Just then the ghost arrived, saying,
"lll eat you up; l'Il eat you up,” and he would have swallowed the
man. The man began to shake, and begged the sage to save his
life. The sage said: —“I will find you a way out. Look at that dog
with a curly tail. Draw your sword quickly and cut the tail off
and give it to the ghost to straighten out.” The man cut off the
dogs tail and gave it to the ghost, saying, “Straighten that out
for me.” The ghost took it and slowly and carefully straightened
it out, but as soon as he let go, it instantly curled up again.
Once more he laboriously straightened it out, only to find it
again curled up as soon as he attempted to let go of it. Again
he patiently straightened it out, but as soon as he let it go, it
curled up once more. So he went on for days and days, until
he was exhausted, and said, “I was never in such trouble before
in my life. | am an old veteran ghost, but never before was | in
such trouble. | will make compromise with you,” he said to the
man. "You let me off and | will let you keep all | have given you
and will promise not to harm you.” The man was much pleased,
and accepted the offer gladly.
This world is that dog's curly tail, and people have been
striving to straighten it out for hundreds of years, but when they
42
WE HELP OURSELVES, NOT THE WORLD.
let go, it curls up again. How can it be otherwise? One must fırst
know how to work without attachment, then he will not be a
fanatic. When we know that this world is like a dog's curly tail
and will never straighten, we shall not become fanatics. They
can never do real work. If there were no fanaticism in the world
it would make much more progress than it does now. It is all
silly nonsense to think that fanaticism makes for the progress
of mankind. On the contrary, it is a retarding element, creating
hatred and anger, causing people to fight each other, and
making them unsympathetic. Whatever we think and believe
we consider the best in the world, and what we do not believe,
we regard as of no value. So, always remember this curly tail of
the dog whenever you have a tendency to become a fanatic.
You need not worry or make yourself sleepless; the world will
go on. When you have avoided fanaticism then alone will you
work well. It is the level-headed man, the calm man of good
judgment and cool nerves, of great sympathy and love, who
does good work. The fanatic has no sympathy.
43
KARMA YOGA
44
VI.
NON-ATTACHMENT IS COMPLETE
SELF-ABNEGATION.
UST AS every action that emanates from us comes back to us,
even so our actions may act on other people and theirs on
us. Perhaps all of you have observed it as a fact that when
persons do evil actions they become more and more evil, and
when they begin to do good they become stronger and stronger
and do good all the time. This multiplication of action cannot
be explained on any other ground, except that we can act and
react upon each other. To take a simile from physical science,
when | am doing a certain action my mind is in a certain form
of vibration; all minds under similar circumstances would have
the tendency to be affected by my mind. If there are different
musical instruments in one room all of you have noticed
that if one is struck the others have a tendency to vibrate the
same note. So, taking this as an illustration, it shows that the
instruments had each the same tension and would be affected
alike by the same impulse. So all minds that have the same
tension will be equally affected by the same thought. Of course,
it will vary, according to the distance, but it will be open to be
affected. Suppose | am doing an evil act, my mind is in a certain
45
KARMA YOGA
state of vibration, and all minds in the universe, in the similar
state, will have the possibility of being affected by my mind. So,
when | am doing a good action, my mind has another state of
tension, and all minds similarly attuned will have the possibility
of being affected, and this power of affection will be more or
less according to the tension.
Following this simile further, it is quite possible that, just as
light waves may travel for millions of years before they reach
their object, so these thought waves may travel hundreds of
years, until they meet with an object with which they vibrate
in unison. It is quite possible, therefore, that this atmosphere
of ours is full of such thought pulsations, both good and evil.
Every thought projected from every brain goes on pulsating, as
it were, until it meets an object. Any mind which is opening
itself to receive some of these will receive them immediately.
So, when a man is doing evil action, he has brought his mind
to a certain state of tension, and all the waves corresponding
to that state of tension, which are already in the atmosphere,
will struggle to enter his mind. That is why an evildoer generally
goes on doing more and more evil. His action is intensified. Such,
also, will be the case with the doer of good; he will open himself
to all the good waves that are in the atmosphere, and his good
actions will be intensified. We run, therefore, a twofold danger
in doing evil; first, we open ourselves to all the evil influences
surrounding us; secondly, we create evil which will affect
others. It may be possible that our evil actions will affect others
hundreds of years hence. In doing evil we injure ourselves and
others also. In doing good we do good to ourselves and to
others, and, like all other forces in man, these good and evil
forces gather strength from outside.
According to Karma Yoga, the action one has done cannot be
destroyed until it has borne fruit; no power in nature can stop
it from bearing its results. If | do an evil action, | must suffer for
it; there is no power in this universe to stop or stay it. So, if | do
a good action there is no power in the universe which can stop
46
NON-ATTACHMENT IS COMPLETE SELF-ABNEGATION.
its bearing good results. The cause must have its effect; nothing
can restrain it. Now comes a very fine and serious question
about Karma Yoga—that these actions of ours, either good or
evil, are intimately connected with each other. We cannot puta
line of demarcation and say this action is entirely good and this
entirely evil. There is no action which does not bear good and
evil at the same time. To take the nearest example: | am talking
to you, and some of you, perhaps, think | am doing good, and
at the same time | am, perhaps, killing thousands of microbes
in the atmosphere; | am doing evil to something else. When it
is very near to us and affects those we know we say it is very
good action, if it affects them in a good manner. For instance,
you may call my speaking to you very good, but the microbes
will not; the microbes you do not see, but yourselves you do
see. The effect on you is obvious, but that on the microbes is
not obvious. And so, if we analyze our evil actions, we will find
that some good was done somewhere. "He who in good action
sees that there is something evil in it and who in the midst of
evil sees that there is some good in it somewhere has known
the secret of work.”
But what follows from it? That, however we may try, there
cannot be any action which is perfectly pure, or any which is
perfectly impure, taking purity or impurity in the sense of injury
or non-injury. We cannot breatheor live without injuring others,
and every bit of food we eat is taken from another's mouth; our
very lives are crowding out some other lives. It may be men, or
animals, or small microbes, but some one we have to crowd
out. That being the case, it naturally follows that perfection can
never be attained by work. We may work through all eternity,
but there will be no way out of this intricate maze; you may
work on, and on, and on; there will be no end.
The second point to consider is, What is the end of work?
We find the vast majority of people in every country believing
that there will be a time when this world will become perfect,
when there will be no disease, nor death, nor unhappiness, nor
47
KARMA YOGA
wickedness. That is a very good idea, a very good motive power
for the ignorant, but if we think for a moment we will find that
on the very face of it it cannot be so. How can it be, seeing that
good and bad are the obverse and reverse of the same coin?
How can you have good without evil at the same time? What is
meant by perfection? A perfect life is a contradiction in terms.
Life itself is a state of continuous struggle between ourselves
and everything outside. Every moment we are fighting with
external nature, and if we are defeated our life will have to go.
It is a continuous struggle for food. If food fails we die. Life is
not a simple effect, but a compound effect. This compound
struggle between something inside and the external world is
what we call life. So, on the very face of it, when this struggle
ceases, there will be an end of what we call life.
What is meant by this ideal happiness is that this struggle
will cease altogether. But then life will cease, for the struggle
can only cease when life has ceased. Then, again, before we
have attained to one-thousandth part of it, this earth will have
cooled down, and we will not be. So this millennium cannot
be in this world, if it can be anywhere else. Every act of charity,
every thought of sympathy, every action of help, every good
deed, is taking so much away from our little selves and making
us think of ourselves the least and, therefore, is good. Here we
find that the Jnani, or Bhakta, or Karmi, all come to one point.
The highest ideal is eternal and entire self-abnegation, where
there is no “l,” but is all thou; and consciously, or unconsciously,
Karma Yoga leads to that. It is the basis of all morality; you may
extend it to men, or animals, or angels, but it is the one basic
idea, the one fundamental principle running through all ethical
systems.
You will find various classes of men in this world. First, there
are the God-men, who are abnegating themselves entirely
and will do good to others, even at the sacrifice of their own
lives. These are the highest of men. If there are a hundred of
such in any country, that country need not despair. Then there
48
NON-ATTACHMENT IS COMPLETE SELF-ABNEGATION.
are good men, who do good to others so long as it does not
injure themselves; and there is a third class, who, to do good
to themselves, would injure others. It is said there is a fourth
class of people, who will injure others for injury's sake. Just as
there are at one pole of existence the good men, who will do
good for good's sake, so, at the other pole, there are others who
will injure others, just for the sake of injury. They do not gain
anything thereby, but it is their nature. So we see that the man
who sacrifices himself to do good to others, the man with the
highest self-abnegation, is the greatest man.
Here are two Sanskrit words. One is called “Pravritti,”
revolving towards, and the other is “Nivritti,” revolving away.
The "revolving towards” is what we call the world, “I and mine,”
those who are always enriching that "me" by wealth, and
property, by power, and name, and fame, always wanting to
accumulate everything towards one centre, and that centre
“myself.” That is the “pravritti,” the natural tendency of every
human being; taking everything from everywhere and heaping
it around one centre, and that centre his own sweet self. When
this begins to break, when it is "nivritti," “going away from,” then
begin morality and religion. Both "pravritti" and "nivritti" are
work, but one is evil work, and the other is good work. This
"nivritti" is the basis of all morality and all religion, and the very
perfection of it is entire self-abnegation, readiness to sacrifice
mind, body and everything for another being. When a man has
reached that state he has attained to the perfection of Karma
Yoga. This is the highest result of good works. If a man has not
studied a single philosophy, if he does not believe in any God,
and never has, if he has never prayed even once in his whole life,
but, ifthe simple power of good actions has brought him to that
state where he is ready to give up his life and all else for others,
he has arrived at the same point to which the religious man
will come through his prayers and the philosopher through his
knowledge, and so you find that the philosopher, the worker,
and the devotee, all meet at one point, and that one point is
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KARMA YOGA
self-abnegation. However the systems of philosophy may differ
in opinion, all mankind stands in reverence and awe before
the man who is ready to sacrifice himself for others. No more
question of creed, or doctrine—even men who are very much
opposed to all religious ideas, when they see one of these acts of
complete self-sacrifice, must revere it. Have you not seen even
a most bigoted Christian, when he reads Sir Edwin Arnold's
"Light of Asia,” stand in reverence for Buddha, who preached
no God, preached nothing but self-sacrifice? The only thing is
that the bigot does not know that his own aim and end in life is
exactly the same. The worshipper, by keeping constant the idea
of God and a surrounding of good, comes to the same point
at last, “Thy will be done,” and keeps nothing for himself. That
is self-abnegation. The philosopher, with his knowledge, sees
that the seeming self is a delusion and easily gives it up; yet it
is self-abnegation. So the paths of Karma, Bhakti and Jnana all
meet here, and this is what was meant by all the great preachers
of ancient times, when they taught that God is not the world.
There is one thing which is world and another which is God,
and this is very true; what they mean by the world is selfishness.
Unselfishness is God. One may live on a throne, in a golden
palace, and be perfectly unselfish, and he is in God. Another
may live in a hut, and wear rags, and have nothing in the world,
yet, if he is selfish, he is intensely merged in the world.
To come back to one of our points, we say that we cannot do
good without doing some evil, or evil without doingsome good.
Knowing this, how can we work? A solution is found in the
Gitä, the theory of non-attachment, to be attached to nothing.
Know that you are separated entirely from this world; that you
are in the world, but whatever you are doing, you are not doing
for your own sake. Any action that you do for yourself will bring
an effect on you. If it is a good action you will have to take the
good effect, and, if bad, you will have to take the bad effect; but
any action that is not done for your own sake, whatever it be,
will have no effect on you. Even if a man kill the whole world,
50
ti
NON-ATTACHMENT IS COMPLETE SELF-ABNEGATION.
he is neither killed nor is killing, when he knows that he is not
acting for himself at all. Therefore, Karma Yoga teaches, do not
give up the world; live in the world, take it in as much as you
can, but not for the sake of enjoyment. Enjoyment should not
be the goal. First kill yourself and then take the whole world
as yourself. “The old man must die.” This old man is this selfish
idea that the whole world is made for our enjoyment. There
are people who teach us that all the animals were created for
us to kill and eat, and that this universe is for the enjoyment of
man. That is all foolishness. A tiger might as well say, "Man was
created for me," and cry, “O Lord, how wicked are these men,
who do not come and put themselves before us to be eaten;
they are breaking your law.” If the world is created for us we
are also created for the world. That this world is created for our
enjoyment is the idea that holds us down. This world is not for
our sake; millions pass out of it every year; the world does not
feel it; millions of others have been supplied. Just as the world is
for us, we are for the world.
To work, therefore, first give up the idea of attachment.
Secondly, do not mix in the fray; hold yourself as a witness and
go on working. A sage has said, "Look upon your children as
your nurse does.” The nurse will take your baby and fondle
it and play with it and behave as gently as if it were her own
child, but as soon as you give her notice she is ready to start
off with her baggage from the house. Everything is forgotten; it
would not give the ordinary nurse the least pang to leave your
children and take up other children. Even so be with your own.
You are the nurse, and, if you believe in God, believe that these
are all His. The greatest weakness generally insinuates itself as
the greatest good and strength. This is weakness to think that
some one depends on me, and | can do good to somebody.
This pride is the mother of all our attachment, and through
this attachment comes all our pain. We must inform our minds
that no one in this universe depends upon us; not one beggar
depends on our charity; not one soul on our kindness; not one
51
KARMA YOGA
on our help. They are all helped and will be helped if millions
of us were not here. The course of nature will not stop for you
and me; it is only a blessed privilege to you and me that we are
allowed in the shape of help to others, to educate ourselves.
This is one lesson to learn, through the whole of our lives, and
when we have learned it fully we shall never be unhappy; we
can go and mix anywhere and everywhere. This very year some
of our friends may have died. Is the world waiting for them? Is
its current stopped? It goes on. So drive out, thrash out of your
mind, this idea that you have to do something for the world;
the world does not require any help from you. When you have
trained your nerves and your muscles to this idea there will
be no reaction in the form of pain. When you give something
to a man and expect nothing—do not expect the man to be
grateful—it will not tell upon you, because you never expected
anything, never thought you had a right to anything; you gave
what he deserved; his own Karma got it for him; your Karma
made you the carrier. Why should you be proud of giving
something? You are the porter who carried the money, and the
world deserved it by its own Karma. Where is the reason for
pride? There is nothing very great in what you give to the world.
When you have got the feeling of non-attachment there will
be neither good nor evil work for you. It is only selfishness that
makes the difference of good and evil. It is a very hard thing to
understand; but you will come to learn in time that nothing in
the universe has power over you until you admit it. Nothing
has power over the Self of man until the selfbecomes a fool and
obeys the power. So, by non-attachment, you deny the power
of anything to act upon you. It is very easy to say that nothing
has the right to act upon you until you allow it, but what is the
sign of the man who really does not allow anything to work
upon him, who is neither happy nor unhappy, when he is acted
upon by the external world? The sign is that it makes no change
in his mind; in good fortune or in ill he remains the same.
52
NON-ATTACHMENT IS COMPLETE SELF-ABNEGATION.
There was a great sage called Vyäsa. This Vyäsa was the
writer of the Vedänta philosophy, a holy man. His father had
tried to become a very perfect man and failed; his grandfather
tried, failed. His great-grandfather tried, failed. He himself did
not succeed perfectly, but his son, Shuka, was born perfect.
He taught this son, and, after teaching him himself, he sent
him to the court of King Janaka. There was a great king called
Janaka Videha. Videha means "outside the body" Although a
king, he had entirely forgotten that he was a body; he was a
spirit all the time. This boy was sent to be taught by him. The
King knew that Vyása's son was coming to him to learn, so he
made certain arrangements beforehand, and when this boy
presented himself at the gates of the palace the guards took
no notice of him whatsoever. They only gave him a place to sit,
and he sat there for “three days and nights, nobody speaking
to him, nobody asking who he was or whence he was. He was
the son of this great sage; his father was honored by the whole
country, and he himself was a most respected person, yet the
low, vulgar guards of the palace would take no notice of him.
After that, suddenly, the ministers of the King and all the high
officials came there and received him with the greatest honors.
They took him in and showed him into splendid rooms, gave
him the most fragrant baths and wonderful dresses, and for
eight days they kept him there in all kinds of luxury. That face
did not change; he was the same in the midst of this luxury as
at the door. Then he was brought before the King. The King
was on his throne, music was playing, and dancing and other
amusements going on. The King gave him a cup of milk, full
to the brim, and asked him to go seven times round the hall
without spilling a drop. The boy took the cup and proceeded
in the midst of this music and the beautiful faces. Seven times
he went round, and not a drop of milk was spilled; The boy's
mind could not be attracted by anything in the world, unless
he allowed it. And when he brought the cup to the King, the
King said to him, "What your father has taught you and what
53
KARMA YOGA
you have learned yourself | can only repeat; you have known
the truth; go home”
Thus, the man that has practised control over himself cannot
be acted upon by anything outside; there is no more slavery for
him. The mind has become free; such a man alone is fit to live
in the world. We generally find men of two opinions. To those
who have not controlled their own minds this world is either
full of evil or a mixture of good and evil. This very world will
become an optimistic world when we have become masters
of our own minds. Nothing will work upon us as good or evil;
we shall find everything harmonious. Some men who begin by
saying the world is a hell will end by saying it is heaven. If we are
genuine Karma Yogis and want to train ourselves to this state,
wherever we may begin we shall end in perfect self-abnegation,
and as soon as this seeming self has gone this whole world,
which at first appears to us to lie filled with evil, will appear
to be heaven and full of blessedness. lts very atmosphere will
be blessed; every human face will be good. This is the goal and
end of Karma Yoga, and this is perfection. So, you see, these
various Yogas do not conflict with each other; each one goes
to the same goal and makes us perfect, but each one has to
be practised. The whole secret is in practising. First hear, then
think, and then practise. This is true of every Yoga. You have
first to hear about it and understand what it is, and many
things you do not understand, by constant hearing, will be
made clear. It is hard to understand everything at once. The
explanation of everything is in yourself. No one was ever taught
by another; each one of us has to teach himself. The external
teacher is only the suggestion which rouses the internal teacher
to understand things. Then things will be made clearer by the
power of perception, and we shall realize them in our own souls,
and that will become an intense power of will. First feeling,
then it becomes willing, and out of that willingness will come
the tremendous power of work that will go through every vein,
and nerve, and muscle, until the whole mass of your body is
54
NON-ATTACHMENT IS COMPLETE SELF-ABNEGATION.
changed into that unselfish Yoga of work, and the result will be
perfect self-abnegation; utter unselfishness. It does not depend
on any dogma, or doctrine, or belief; either Christian, or Jew,
or Gentile, it does not matter. Are you unselfish? That is the
question. If you are, you will be perfect without reading a single
religious book, without going into a single church or temple.
"Fools alone say that work and philosophy are different, not the
learned.” The learned know that, though apparently different
from each other, they at last come to the same goal, and that
is perfection.
55
KARMA YOGA
56
VII.
FREEDOM.
N ADDITION to meaning work, we have seen that the word
Karma also means causation. Any work, any action, any
thought, that produces an effect is called a Karma. This law of
Karma means the law of causation; wheresoever there is a cause,
an effect must be produced; it cannot be resisted, and that law
of Karma, according to our philosophy, is pervading the whole
universe. Whatever we see, or feel, or do; whatever action there
is anywhere in the universe, is but the effect of past work on
the one hand, and, on the other hand, becomes the cause, and
produces another effect. It is necessary, together with this, to
consider the word law. We see psychologically that law is the
tendency of a series to repeat itself. When we see one event
followed by another, or sometimes happening simultaneously,
we expect this will always follow. A series of phenomena
become associated in our mind in a sort of invariable order,
so that what we see at one time immediately refers to other
facts in the mind. One idea, or, according to our psychology,
one wave, produced in the mind stuff, always produces many
similar ones. This is the law of association, and causation is
only a part of this law of pervasive association. In the external
world the idea of law is the same as in the internal world—the
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KARMA YOGA
expectation that one phenomenon will be followed by another,
and that the series will repeat itself, so far as we can see. Really
speaking, therefore, law does not exist in nature. Practically, it
is an error to say that gravitation exists in the earth, or that
there is any law existing anywhere in nature. Law is the method,
the manner in which our mind grasps a series of phenomena;
it is all in the mind. Certain phenomena happening together,
followed by the conviction with which our mind grasps the
whole series, is what we call law.
The next question will be what we mean by law being
universal. Our universe is that portion of existence which is
cut off by what the Sanskrit psychologists call "Nama-Rupa'
(name and form). This universe is only one part of that infinite
existence, which has been thrown into a peculiar mould, or that
is composed of name and form, and when it fills that mould
that part of the sum total of existence which fills the mould
is what is called our universe. It necessarily follows that law is
only possible within this universe; beyond that there can not
be any law. When we speak of this universe we only mean that
portion of existence which is limited by our mind; the universe
of senses, which we can see, feel, touch, hear, think of, imagine;
that portion of the universe alone is under law, but beyond
that it cannot be under law, because causation does not
extend beyond that. Anything beyond the range of our mind
and our senses is not bound by the law of causation, as there
is no association beyond the senses, and no causation without
association of ideas. It is only when it gets moulded into name
and form that existence obeys the law of causation, and is
said to be under law, because law has its essence in causation.
Therefore, we see at once that there cannot be any free will;
the very words are a contradiction, because will is what we
know, and everything that we know is within our universe, and
everything within our universe has been moulded into name
and form, and everything that we know, or can possibly know,
must obey causation, and that which obeys the law of causation
58
,
FREEDOM.
cannot be free. It is acted upon by other agents, and becomes
cause in turn, and so on. But that which became converted into
the will, which was not the will, but which, when it fell into
this mould, became converted into the human will, is free, and
when this will gets out of this mould of causation it will be free
again. From freedom it comes, and becomes moulded into this
bondage, and it gets out and goes back to freedom.
The question was raised, “From whom this universe comes,
in whom it rests, and to whom it goes?” The answer was given,
“From that Freedom it comes, it rests in bondage, and it goes
back into that Freedom.” So, when we speak of man as that
being who is manifesting, only one part is man; this body and
this mind which we see are only one part of the whole man,
only one spot of that infinite Being which is man. This whole
universe is only one speck of the infinite Being, and all our laws,
and our bondages, our joys and our sorrows, our happinesses,
and our expectations, are only within this small universe, all our
progression and digression are within this small space. Thus you
see how childish it is to expect a continuation of this world, to
expect and hope to go to heaven, which means a repetition of
this world that we have. You see at once that it is an impossible
and childish desire to make the whole infinite universe conform
to that existence which we know. When a man says he will
have this thing again and again which he is having now, or, as
| sometimes say, when he asks for a comfortable religion, you
may know that he has become so degenerate that he cannot
think of anything higher than he is now, just his little present
surroundings. He has forgotten his infinite nature, and his whole
idea is confined to these little joys and sorrows, and jealousies
of the moment. He thinks this is the infinite, and not only so,
he will not let it go. He clings on desperately to “Trishna,” the
thirst after life. There are millions of happinesses, and beings,
and laws, and progresses, and causations all acting apart from
what we know. This is but one section of our infinite nature.
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KARMA YOGA
To acquire freedom we have to get beyond this universe; it
cannot be found here. Perfect equilibrium cannot be attained
in this universe, nor in heaven, nor earth, nor anywhere where
thoughts can go, or the mind, where the senses can feel, see,
hear or touch, or which we can imagine. No such place can give
freedom, because it would be all within our universe, and that
universe must be bound by causation. It may be much finer than
this; there are places that are much finer than this earth of ours,
where enjoyments will be keener, but it will be in the universe,
and therefore in bondage, so we will have to go beyond, and
real religion begins there, where this little universe ends. Where
these little joys, and sorrows, and knowledges end, there the
Real begins. Until we can give up this thirst after life, this strong
attachment to this existence of one moment, we have no hope
of catching even a glimpse of that infinite freedom beyond. lt
stands then that there is only one way to attain to that freedom
which is the goal of mankind, and that is by giving up this little
life, giving up this little universe, giving up this earth, giving
up heaven, giving up the body, giving up the mind, giving up
everything. If we can give up this little universe of the senses, or
the mind, immediately we shall be free. The only way to come
out of bondage is to go beyond law, go beyond causation, and
wherever this universe exists, there causation prevails.
But it is the most difficult thing to give up this universe; few
ever attain to that. There are two ways in our books. One is
called the “Neti Neti” (not this, not this), the negative; and
the other is called the “Iti Iti” (this, this), the positive way. The
negative way is the most difficult. It is only possible to the very
highest, exceptional minds, with gigantic will powers, who
simply stand and say, “No, | will not have this,” and the mind
and body obey, and they come out. But such people are very
rare, and the vast majority of mankind choose the positive way,
the way through this world, making use of all the bondages
themselves to break those bondages. That is also giving up, only
slowly and gradually, by knowing things, enjoying things, and
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FREEDOM.
thus getting experience, and knowing the nature of things, until
the mind lets them go away and becomes unattached. The one
is by reasoning and the other is through work. The first is for the
Jnáni, and is by refusing to work, and the second is Karma Yoga,
by working. Every one must work in the universe. “Only those
who are perfectly satisfied with the Self, whose desires do not
go beyond the Self, whose mind never strays out of the Self, to
whom that Self is all in all, do not work.” The rest must all work.
A current rushing down stream of its own nature, falls into a
hollow and makes a whirlpool, and, after running a little in
that whirlpool, it emerges again in the form of the free current.
So each human life is like that current. It gets into the whirl,
gets involved in this world of name and form, whirls round a
little, crying, my father, my brother, my name, my fame, and
at last emerges, and regains its freedom. The whole universe is
doing that, whether it knows it or not. Every one is having this
experience, consciously or unconsciously, and in the long run
getting out of this whirlpool.
But what is Karma Yoga? Knowing the secret of work. We
see that the whole universe is working. For what? For salvation,
for liberty, from the atom to the highest being; working for
that one end, liberty for the mind, for the body, for the spirit,
for everything; always trying to get freedom, flying away from
bondage. The sun, moon, earth, the planets, are all trying to fly
from bondage. Karma Yoga tells us the secret, the method of
work. Instead of being knocked about in this universe, and after
long delay and thrashing, getting to know things as they are,
Karma Yoga teaches us the secret of work, the method of work,
the organizing power of work. The vast mass of energy may be
spent in vain, if we do not know how to utilize it. Karma Yoga
makes a science of it; you learn how to utilize all the workings
of this world. Work is inevitable, it must be, but work to the
highest purpose. Karma Yoga makes us admit that this world
is a world of five minutes; that it is something we have to pass
through; that real freedom is not here, but we must go beyond
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KARMA YOGA
to come to freedom. To find the way out we will have to go
through it slowly and surely. There may be those exceptional
persons about whom | just spoke, who can stand aside and give
it up, as a snake casts off its skin and stands aside and looks
at it; there are some of these exceptional beings; but for the
rest of mankind, they have to slowly go through it, and Karma
Yoga shows to the world the process, the secret, the method of
doing it to the best advantage.
What does it say? “Work thou incessantly, but give up all
attachment to work.” Do not identify yourself with anything.
Hold your mind free. All this that you see, the pains and the
miseries, are but conditions of this world; poverty and wealth,
and happiness, are but momentary; they do not belong to our
nature at all. Our nature is far beyond misery, or happiness,
beyond everything of the senses, beyond the imagination;
and yet we must go on working all the time. “Misery comes
through attachment, not through work.” As soon as we
identify ourselves with the work we feel miserable, but if we
do not identify ourselves with it we do not feel that misery. If
a beautiful picture belonging to another is burned, a man does
not become miserable, but when his own picture is burned how
miserable he feels! Why? Both were beautiful pictures, perhaps
copies of the same original, but in one case misery is felt and not
in the other. It is because in one case he identifies himself with
the picture, and not in the other. This “| and mine” causes the
whole misery. With possession came selfishness, and selfishness
brought misery. Every act of selfishness or thought of selfishness
makes us attached to something behind, and immediately we
are made slaves. Each wave in the Chitta that says “I and mine,”
immediately puts a chain round us and makes us slaves, and
the more we say “l and mine” the more slavery grows, the more
misery increases. Therefore, Karma Yoga tells us to enjoy all the
pictures in the world, but not to identify ourselves with them.
Never say “Mine.” Whenever we say a thing is ours, misery will
immediately come. Do not even say “My child” in your mind.
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FREEDOM.
Enjoy the child, but do not say “Mine.” If you do, then will come
the misery. Do not say "My house,” do not say "My body" The
whole difficulty is there. The body is neither yours nor mine
nor anybody's. These bodies are coming and going by the laws
of nature, but we are free, standing as witness. This body is no
more free than a picture, or the wall. Why should we attach
ourselves to a body? If somebody paints a picture, he does it
and passes away. Why be attached to it? Let it pass. Do not
project that tentacle of selfishness, “I will possess it" As soon as
that is projected misery will begin.
So the Karma Yogi says, first destroy the tendency to project
this tentacle of selfishness, and when you have the power of
checking that, hold it in, do not allow the mind to get into that
sort of wave. Then go out into the world and work as much as
you can. Mix everywhere; go where you please; you will never
be touched. Like the lotus leaf in water, which the water cannot
wet, so will you be. This is called “Vairaghyam.” It is the law of
Karma Yoga, non-attachment. | have just told you that without
non-attachment there cannot be any Yoga. It is the basis of all
the Yogas, and this is the real meaning of non-attachment; the
man who gives up living in houses, and wearing fine clothes,
and eating good food, and goes into the desert, may be a
most attached person. His only possession, his own body, may
become everything to him, and he is struggling for his body.
Non-attachment does not mean what we do in our external
body, but it is in the mind; this connecting link of “| and mine"
is in the body. If we have not this link with the body, and with
things of the senses, we are non-attached, wherever we be. A
man may be on a throne and perfectly non-attached; another
man may bein rags and still very much attached. First, we attain
to this non-attachment, and then we work incessantly. Karma
Yoga gives a method to help us in giving up this attachment. It
is hard to give it up.
Here are the two ways of giving up all attachment. The one is
for those who do not believe in God, or in any outside help. They
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KARMA YOGA
are left to their own devices; they have simply to work with their
own will, the power of the mind, that "I must be non-attached,”
and with the power of discrimination. For those who believe
in God, it is less difficult. They give up the fruits of work unto
the Lord, and then go to work and are never attached to the
results. Whatever they see, feel, hear, do, is for Him. Whatever
good work we do, let us not take any praise to ourselves. It is
the Lord's; give up the fruits unto Him. The grandest works that
we do in our lives, never let us think that we shall receive the
benefits thereof, or that we have done a good work. Let us be
at peace, perfect peace, with ourselves, and give up our whole
body and mind and everything as an eternal sacrifice. Instead
of the sacrifice of pouring oblations into the fire, make this one
great sacrifice day and night—the sacrifice of the little self. Day
and night renounce the seeming self until it becomes a habit,
until it gets into the blood, the nerves, the brain, and the whole
body is every moment obedient to this idea. Then we can get
out anywhere, nothing will touch us. Go into the midst of the
battlefield, with roaring cannon and the din of war, and we shall
be free and at peace.
Karma Yoga teaches us duty as on the lower plane; each one
of us must do his duty. This is my duty, and that is my duty.
Yet we see that this duty is the one great cause of misery. It
becomes a disease with us, drags us ever forward. It clutches
hold of us and makes our whole life miserable. It is the bane of
human life. “This idea of duty is the mid-day summer sun which
scorches the innermost soul of mankind.” Look at those poor
slaves to duty. Duty leaves them no time to think of anything
else, no time to say prayers, no time to bathe. Duty is ever on
them. They go out and work. Duty is on them. They come home
and think of the work for next day. Duty is on them! It is living
a slave's life, at last dropping down in the street and dying in
harness, like a horse. This is duty as it is understood. The only
duty is to be unattached and to work as free beings. Blessed are
we that we are here. We serve our time; whether we do it ill or
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FREEDOM.
well, who knows? If we do it well, we do not get the reward. If
we do it ill, neither do we get the punishment. Be at rest, be free,
and work. This is a very hard thing to attain. How easy it is to
interpret slavery as duty—the morbid attachment of flesh for
flesh as duty! Men go out into the world and struggle and fight
for money. Ask them why they do it. They say:-” It is a duty.” It
is the absurd greed for gold, and they want to cover it with a
few flowers.
What is duty, after all? It is this impulsation of the flesh, our
attachment; and when an attachment has been established,
we call it duty. For instance, in countries where there is no
marriage, there is no duty between husband and wife; when
marriage comes and husband and wife live together, they live
together on account of flesh attachment, and that becomes
settled after generations, and when it becomes settled it
becomes a duty. It is a sort of chronic disease. When it is acute
we call it a disease, when it is chronic we call it nature. But it is
a disease just the same. So when attachment becomes chronic
we baptize it with the high sounding name of duty. We strew
flowers upon it, trumpets sound, sacred texts are said over it,
and then the whole world fights, and each one robs the other
for this duty’s sake. Duty is good; it checks brutality to a certain
extent. To the lowest men, who cannot have any other ideal, it
is of some good, but those who want to be Karma Yogis must
throw this idea of duty overboard. There is no duty for you
and me. Whatever you have to give to the world, give, but not
as a duty. Do not take any thought of that. Be not compelled.
Why should you be compelled? Everything that you do under
compulsion is attachment. Why should you have any duty? You
have no duty under the sun. If you want reward you must also
have punishment; the only way to get out of the punishment is
to give upthereward. The only way of getting out of misery is by
giving up the idea of happiness, because these two are linked to
each other. On one side happiness, on the other misery. On one
side life, on the other death. The only way to get beyond death
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KARMA YOGA
is to give up life; not to care for it. Life and death are the same
thing, looked at from different points. So the idea of happiness
without misery, or life without death is very good for school
boys and children, but the thinker sees that it is a contradiction
of terms and gives up both. Seek no praise, no reward, for
anything you do. It is a very hard task. No sooner do we do a
good action than we begin to desire credit for it. No sooner do
we give money to some charity than we want to see our names
in the papers. Misery must come as the result of such desires.
The greatest men in the world have passed away unknown. The
Buddhas and the Christs that you see are but second degree
men in comparison with them. Hundreds of them have lived in
every country, working silently. Silently they pass away, and in
time their thoughts find expression in Buddhas or Christs, and
the latter become known to us. The highest men did not seek
to get any name or fame from their knowledge. Their whole
nature shrank from it. They are the pure Sättvikis, who can
never make any stir, but melt down in love.
Next in order come men with more Rajas, or activity,
combative natures, who take up the ideas of the perfect ones
and preach them to the world. These highest ones silently
collect ideas and the others, —the Buddhas and Christs,—go
from place to place preaching and working. The highest men are
calm, silent and unknown. They are the men who really know
the power of thought; they are sure that even if they go into a
cave and close up the door, simply think five thoughts and pass
away, these five thoughts will live through eternity. They will
penetrate through the mountains and cross oceans, and travel
through the world, and will enter into some brain and raise up
some man who will give expression to these thoughts. These
men are too near the Lord to become active and fight, working,
struggling, preaching, and doing good to humanity. The active
workers, however good, have still a little remnant of ignorance.
When our nature has yet some impurities left, then alone can
we work. The highest men cannot work. “Those whose whole
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FREEDOM.
soul is gone into the Self, those whose desires are confined in
the Self, who have become ever associated with the Self, for
them there is no work.” So these are the highest of mankind,
who cannot work; but aside from these, everyone has to work.
But never think that you can help the least thing in this universe.
You can not. You only help yourself in this gymnasium of the
world. This is the attitude of work. If you work in this way; if
you always remember that it isa privilege which has been given
you, you will never be attached. This world goes on. Millions
like you and me think we are great people in the world, but we
die, and in five minutes the world has forgotten us. Give up all
fruits of work; do good for good's sake; then alone will come
perfect non-attachment. The bonds ofthe heart will break, and
we shall reap perfect freedom. This is the secret of Karma.
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KARMA YOGA
68
VIII.
THE IDEAL OF KARMA YOGA.
HE IDEA is that we are to reach the same goal by different
means, and these means | generalize into four—work,
love, psychology and knowledge. But you must, at the
same time, remember that these divisions are not very marked.
Each blends into the other, but as the type prevails the divisions
come. It is not that you cannot find a man who has no other
faculty excepting that of work, or that you cannot find men
who are more than worshippers only, nor men who have more
than knowledge. These divisions are made on account of the
type or tendency that predominates in a man. We have found
that, in the end, they all converge and become one: reaching
one goal. All religions and all methods of work are going
towards that goal.
First I will try to point out the goal. What is the goal of the
whole universe? Freedom. Everything that we see, feel, hear is
struggling towards freedom, from the atom to the man, from
the insentient, lifeless particle of matter to the highest human
existence, the human soul. The whole universe is the result
of this struggle for freedom. In all these combinations every
particle is trying to fly from the other particles, and the others
are holding it in check. Our earth is trying to fly from the sun
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KARMA YOGA
and the moon from the earth. Everything has a tendency to
infinite dispersion. All that we see in this universe, good, bad or
indifferent, all the work or thought that is in this universe, has
for its basis this one struggle towards freedom; it is under the
impulse of this that the saint prays and the robber robs. When
the line of action taken is not a proper one we call it evil, and
when the manifestation is proper and high we call it good. But
the impulse is the same, to struggle towards that freedom. The
saint is oppressed with the idea of his bondage, and he wants to
get rid of it, so he worships God. The thief is oppressed with the
idea that he does not possess certain things, and he wants to get
rid of that, to get freedom from it, so he steals. Freedom is the
one goal of all nature, sentient or insentient, and, consciously or
unconsciously, everything is struggling towards that.
We find in every religion the manifestation of this struggle
towards freedom. It is the groundwork of all morality, of
unselfishness, which means getting out of the idea that | am this
little body. When we see a man doing good work, helping others,
it means that that man will not be confined within the limited
circle of “me and mine.” There is no limit to this getting out. All
the great systems of ethics preach absolute unselfishness as the
goal. Supposing this absolute unselfishness can be reached by
a man, what becomes of that man? He is no more that little
Mr. So-and-So; he has acquired infinite expansion. That little
personality which he had before is lost forever; he has become
infinite, and the attainment of this infinite expansion is the
goal of all religions and of all teachings. The personalist, when
he hears the idea philosophically put, gets frightened. At the
same time, when he is preaching morality, he is preaching
the very same thing. He puts no limit to the unselfishness of
man. Suppose a man becomes perfectly unselfish under the
personalistic system, how are we to distinguish him from others
in other systems? He is one with the universe, and that is the
goal, only the poor personalist dares not follow out his own
premises to their right conclusion. Karma Yoga is attaining this
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THE IDEAL OF KARMA YOGA.
goal through unselfish work, that freedom which is the goal
of human nature. Every selfish action, therefore, retards our
reaching the goal, and every unselfish action takes us towards
the goal; that is why the only definition that can be given of
morality is this—that which is selfish is immoral, and that
which is unselfish is moral.
But, if you come to the details, you will find a difference.
For instance, environment will make the details different. The
same action under one set of circumstances will be unselfish,
and under another set will be selfish, So we can give only a
general definition and leave the details to be worked out by
the difference in time, place and circumstance. In one country
one sort of behaviour will be considered moral, and in another
very immoral, because the circumstances differ. We find that
the goal of all nature is freedom, and that this freedom is
only to be attained by perfect unselfishness, and every action,
thought, word or deed that is unselfish takes us towards the
goal and, as such, is called moral. That definition, you will find,
will hold good for every religion and every system of ethics. For
instance, you will find different ideas of ethics. In some systems
they are derived from a superior Being, God. If you ask why a
man shall do this and not do that they will answer, Because it is
the command of God. But whatever be the source from which
it is derived, their code of ethics will have as the one central
idea not to think of self, to give up self. And yet some of them
with this high ethical idea are frightened to give up their little
personalities. | would ask the man who would cling to the little
personalities to consider the case of a man who has become
perfectly unselfish, who has no thought for himself, who does
no deed for himself, who speaks no word for himself, where
then is “himself?” That “himself” is personal to him so long as
he thinks, acts and knows for himself. If he is only conscious of
others, of the universe, where is “himself?” It is gone forever.
This Karma Yoga, therefore, is a system to attain to freedom
through unselfishness, by good works. The Karma Yogi need
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KARMA YOGA
not have any doctrine whatever. He may not believe in a God,
may not ask what his soul is or think of any metaphysical
speculation. He has got his special task; he has got to work it out
himself. Every moment of his life must be realization, because
he is working out, without a doctrine or theory, the very same
problem that the Jnäni or the worshipper speculates upon and
formulates as doctrines.
Now comes the next question. What is this work? What is
this doing good to the world? Can we do good to the world?
In an absolute sense, no; in a relative sense, yes. No permanent
good can be done to this world; if it could be it would not
be this world. We can satisfy the hunger of a man for fıve
minutes, and he will be hungry again. Every pleasure with
which we can supply a man can only be momentary. No one
can permanently cure this ever-recurring series of pleasure and
pain. Can any permanent mass of happiness be given to the
world? No, not even that. In the ocean you cannot raise one
wave without making a hollow somewhere else. The sum total
of the energies in the world is the same throughout, always the
same. It cannot be increased or decreased. Take the history of
the human race as we know it today. The same miseries and
the same happinesses, the same pleasure and pain, the same
differences in position; some rich, some poor, some high in
position, some low, some healthy, some unhealthy. You find
it was just the same with the ancient Egyptians, the Greeks,
the Romans, as with the Americans to-day. So far as history is
known it has always been the same; yet, at the same time, we
find that, running along with all these differences of pleasure
and pain, there has ever been the struggle to alleviate it. At
every period of history there have been thousands of men and
women who have been struggling to smooth the passage of life
of others. And they have never succeeded. We can only play at
driving the ball from one place to another. We take pain from
the physical body, and it goes to the mental body. It is like that
picture in Dante's hell where the misers were given a mass of
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THE IDEAL OF KARMA YOGA.
gold. They began pushing it up the hill, and again it rolled down.
Thus this wheel is going on. All these talks about a millennium
are very nice as schoolboys' stories, but no better than that.
All nations that dream of millenniums also think that they will
have the best of it at that time; this is the wonderfully unselfish
idea of this millennium!
We come to this, that we cannot add happiness to this
world; similarly, we cannot add pain. The sum total of the
energies displayed will be the same throughout. We just push it
from this side to the other side, and from that side to this, but
it will remain the same, because it is its very nature. This ebb
and flow, this rising and falling, is its very nature; it would be
as logical to say we can have life without death. It is complete
nonsense, because the very idea of life is constant death. The
lamp is constantly burning out, and that is its life. If you want
life you will have to die every moment also. These are only
different expressions of the same thing, looked at from different
standpoints; each of them is the falling and the rising of the
same wave, and the two form one link. One looks at the "fall"
side and becomes a pessimist or at the "rise" side and becomes
an optimist. When a boy is going to school and his father and
mother are taking care of him everything seems blessed to him;
his wantsare simple; he is a great optimist. But the old man, with
his experience, has become calmer, and he has cooled down. So
old nations, with decay all around them, are less hopeful than
new nations. There is a proverb in India:—“A thousand years a
city and a thousand years a forest.” This change is going on, and
it makes people optimists or pessimists according to the side
they see.
The next idea we will take up is the idea of equality. These
millennium ideas have been great motive powers to work. Many
religions preach this as an element. God is coming to rule the
universe; there will be no difference in conditions. The people
who preach this are fanatics, and fanatics are the sincerest of
mankind. Christianity was preached just on this fanaticism, and
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KARMA YOGA
that was what made it attractive to the Greek slaves and the
Roman slaves. They believed they would have no more slavery,
plenty to eat and drink, and therefore they flocked round the
standard. Those who preached the idea fırst were, of course,
ignorant fanatics, but very sincere. In modern times it takes the
form of equality—equality, liberty and fraternity. This is also
fanaticism. This equality has never been and never can be. How
could you be equal here? That would be death. What makes
this world? Lost balance. In the primal state, which is called
Chaos, there is perfect balance. How do all these forces come?
By struggling, competition, conflict. Suppose all these particles
of matter were held in equilibrium, would there be creation?
We know from science there would not be. Disturb the water,
and you find every particle of water trying to become calm
again, one rushing against the other, and in this way come all
these phenomena which you call the universe—all things are
struggling to get back to the state of perfect balance. Then
again a disturbance will come, and this combination will go on,
making creation. Inequality is the very basis of creation. At the
same time, the forces struggling to obtain equality are as much
a necessity of creation as those which destroy it.
Absolute equality, that which means a perfect balance of
all the struggling forces, will never be in this world. Before you
have attained to that state the world will have cooled down and
become alump ofice, and no one will be here. We find, therefore,
that all these ideas of millennium, or absolute equality, are not
only impossible, but, if we could carry them out, they would
lead to the day of destruction. There is, again, the difference in
the brains of men. What makes the difference between man
and man? It is the difference in the brain. Nowadays no one but
a lunatic will say we are all born with the same brain power. We
have come into the world as unequal; we have come as greater
men or as lesser men, and there is no getting away from that.
The American Indians were in this country for thousands of
years, and a few handfuls of your ancestors came. What made
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THE IDEAL OF KARMA YOGA.
all this difference, if we are all the same? Why could not the
Indians have made improvements and built cities, why did they
only go about hunting in the forests all the time, if we are all
equal? A different sort of brain matter came, different bundles
of past impressions came, and they worked out and manifested
themselves. Absolute non-differentiation is death. So long as
this world lasts, this differentiation will be, but the millennium
will come, when the cycle comes to an end. Before that equality
cannot be. Yet this idea is a great motive power. Just as this
inequality is necessary for creation, so the struggle to limit it
is necessary. If there were no differentiation there would be no
creation; if there were no struggle to become free and get back
there would be no creation; but it is the difference between the
two forces that makes the motive power. There will, therefore,
always be these motive powers to work.
This wheel within wheel is terrible mechanism; if we put our
hands in, as soon as we are caught we are gone. Each one of us
thinks that when we have done a certain duty, we will be at rest,
but before we have done a part of that, another is waiting. We
are all being dragged along by this machine. There are only two
ways; one is to give up the machine, to let go, and stand aside.
Give up our desires. That is very easy to say, but it is almost
impossible to do. | do not know whether in twenty millions of
men one can do that. The other way is to plunge into the world
and learn the secret of work, and that is Karma Yoga. Do not fly
from it, but stand inside and know the secret of work. Through
work we shall come out. Through that machinery is the way
out.
We have now seen what this work is. To sum up the whole
thing, this work goes on all the time, and those that believe
in a God will understand it better by thinking that God is not
such an incapable person as to require our help. Secondly, this
universe will go on always. We must remember that our goal
is freedom; our goal is unselfishness, and that goal is to be
reached through work, and, therefore, we must learn the secret
75
KARMA YOGA
of work. So far we have learnt that this work goes on; all such
ideas as of making this world perfectly happy may be good
as motive powers, for fanatics; such silly ideas may have been
good in old times, but we must always know that, although
fanaticism is a very good motive power, and does some good
work, at the same time it brings as much evil as good. The
Karma Yogi asks why should you require any motive to work?
Be beyond motives. “To work you have the right, but not to the
fruits thereof" Man can train himself to that, says the Karma
Yogi. When the idea of doing good will come into his very being,
then he will not seek for any motive outside. Why shall we do
good? Because we like, and ask no questions. Do good because
it is good to do good; he who does good work in order to get
to heaven binds himself, says the Karma Yogi. Any work that is
done with a motive, instead of making us free, which is the goal,
makes one more chain for our feet. Ifwe think by such and such
work we shall get to heaven, we shall be attracted to a place
called heaven, and we shall have to go and see all these things;
that will be one more bondage.
So the only way is to give up all the fruits of work; be
non-attached. Know that this world is not we, or we this world;
that we are really not the body; that we really do not work. We
are the Self, eternally at rest and at peace. Why should we be
bound by anything? We must not weep; there is no weeping
for the Soul. We must not even weep for sympathy. Only, we
like that sort of thing, and, in our imagination, we think that
God is weeping in that way on His throne. Such a God would
not be worth attaining. Why should God weep at all? It is a
sign of weakness, of bondage. There should not be a drop of
tears. How can it be done? It is very good to say be perfectly
non-attached, but what is the way to do it? Every good work we
do without any ulterior motive, instead of forging a chain, will
break one of the links in our chain. Every good thought that we
send to the world, without thinking of the return, will be stored
up, and break one link in the chain, and make us purer, until we
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THE IDEAL OF KARMA YOGA.
become the purest of mortals. Yet it seems to be rather quixotic
and philosophical, than practical. | have read many arguments
against the Gitä, and many have raised the argument that
without motive you cannot work. They have never seen work,
except fanaticism, and, therefore, speak in that way.
| will tell you in a few words about one man who carried
non-attachment into practice. That man was Buddha. He
is the one man who ever carried this into perfect practice.
All the prophets of the world, except Buddha, had external
motive power to move them. The prophets of the world, with
his exception, can be divided into two sets, one set who say
they are God come down on earth, and the other who say
they are messengers from God; and both draw their impetus
from outside, expect reward from outside, however spiritual
may be the language they use. But Buddha is the only prophet
who said "I do not care to know your various theories about
God. What is the use of discussing all the subtle doctrines
about the soul? Do good and be good. And this will take you
to whatever truth there is.” He was absolutely without external
motive power, and what man worked more than he? Show me
in history one character who went so high above all. The whole
human race has produced but one such character; such high
philosophy; such sympathy; this great philosopher, preaching
the highest philosophy, and yet having sympathy for the lowest
animals, and never making any claims. He is the ideal Karma
Yogi, acting entirely without personal motive, and the history
of humanity shows him to have been the greatest man ever
born; beyond compare of all others, the greatest combination
of heart and brain that ever existed, the greatest soul-power
that was ever manifested. He was the first great reformer the
world ever saw. He was the first who dared to say, “Believe
not because some old manuscripts are produced, believe not
because it is your national belief, because you have been made
to believe from your childhood, but reason truth out, and after
you have analyzed it, then, if you find it will do good to one
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KARMA YOGA
and all, believe it, live up to it, and help others to live up to it.”
He works best who works without any selfish motive, desiring
neither money nor anything else, and when a man can do that,
he, too, will be a Buddha, and out of him will come the power
to work in such a manner as to transform the world. This is the
very ideal of Karma Yoga.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Vivekananda, Swami. Eight Lectures on Karma Yoga. New York, NY:
Brentano’, 1896.
Vivekananda, Swami. Vedanta Philosophy: Eight Lectures on Karma Yoga.
New York, NY: The Baker & Taylor Company, 1901.
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