Third chapter from karma yoga

Sorry for posting late the 3rd chapter THE SECRET OF WORK, well i am planning to post audio files of the same beside the textual content. Hope you all understand  the need to have spiritual touch in our fast life. Words like "intuition" " foreseeing"  " luck"  pull us to imagine the unknown mystical power that we are surrounded with. But most important thing is believing in yourself. There will be ups and downs in one's life but it should be taken positively, thinking that "difficult situation" are created god to taste our nerves and courage, if we pass we get a present of "good situation" but if we fail we then also gain knowledge not to repeat same mistake again. well use translator to translate entire page. again to remind you all the text is from swami vivekananda's karma yoga.

Third chapter from karma yoga

                          CHAPTER III
                  
                  THE SECRET OF WORK

Helping others physically, by removing their physical needs, is indeed great,
but the help is great according as the need is greater and according as the help is
far reaching. If a man's wants can be removed for an hour, it is helping him
indeed; if his wants can be removed for a year, it will be more help to him; but
if his wants can be removed for ever, it is surely the greatest help that can be
given him. Spiritual knowledge is the only thing that can destroy our miseries
for ever; any other knowledge satisfies wants only for a time. It is only with the
knowledge of the spirit that the faculty of want is annihilated for ever; 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 those were the most powerful of men who helped man
in his spiritual needs, because spirituality is the true basis of all our activities in
life. A spiritually strong and sound man will be strong in every other respect, if
he so wishes. Until there is spiritual strength in man even physical needs cannot
be well satisfied. Next to spiritual comes intellectual help. The gift of
knowledge is a far higher gift than that of food and clothes; it is even higher
than giving life to a man, because the real life of man consists of knowledge.
Ignorance is death, 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, helping a man physically. Therefore, in considering the question of
helping others, we must always strive not to commit the mistake of thinking
that physical help is the only help that can be given. It is not only the last but
the least, because it cannot bring about permanent satisfaction. The misery that
I feel when I am hungry is satisfied by eating, but hunger returns; my misery
can cease only when I am satisfied beyond all want. Then hunger will not make
me miserable; no distress, no sorrow will be able to move me. So, that help
which tends to make us strong spiritually is the highest, next to it comes
intellectual help, and after that physical help.
The miseries of the world cannot be cured by physical help only. Until man's
nature changes, these physical needs will always arise, and miseries will always
be felt, and no amount of physical help will cure them completely. The only
solution of this problem 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 pure and
spiritually strong and educated, then alone will misery cease in the world, not
before. We may convert every house in the country into a charity asylum, we
may fill the land with hospitals, but the misery of man will still continue to exist
until man's character changes.
We read in the Bhagavad-Gita again and again that we must all work
incessantly. All work is by nature composed of good and evil. We cannot do
any work which will not do some good somewhere; there cannot be any work
which will not cause some harm somewhere. Every work must necessarily be a
mixture of good and evil; yet we are commanded to work incessantly. Good and
evil will both have their results, will produce their Karma. Good action will
entail upon us good effect; bad action, bad. But good and bad are both bondages
of the soul. The solution reached in the Gita in regard to this bondageproducing
nature of work is that, if we do not attach ourselves to the work we
do, it will not have any binding effect on our soul. We shall try to understand
what is meant by this “non-attachment to” to work.
This is the on central idea in tile Gita: work incessantly, but be not attached to
it. Samskâra can be translated very nearly by "inherent 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 Samskâra. Every work that we do, every
movement of the body, every thought that we think, leaves such an impression
on the mind-stuff, and even when such impressions are not obvious on the
surface, they are sufficiently strong to work beneath the surface,
subconsciously. What we are every moment is determined by the sum total of
these impressions on the mind. What I am just at this moment is the effect of
the sum total of all the impressions 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, the character becomes good; if bad, it
becomes bad. If a man continuously hears bad words, thinks bad thoughts, does
bad actions, his mind will be full of bad impressions; and they will influence his
thought and work without his being conscious of the fact. In fact, these bad
impressions are always working, and their resultant must be evil, and that man
will be a bad man; he cannot help it. The sum total of these impressions in him
will create the strong motive power for doing bad actions. He will be like 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 even in spite of himself. When a man has done so much good work and
thought so many good thoughts that there is an irresistible tendency in him to
do good in spite of himself and even if he wishes to do evil, his mind, as the
sum total of his tendencies, will not allow him to do so; the tendencies will turn
him back; he is completely under the influence of the good tendencies. When
such is the case, a man's good character is said to be established.
As the tortoise tucks its feet and head inside the shell, and you may kill it and
break it in pieces, and yet it will not come out, even so the character of that
man who has control over his motives and organs is unchangeably established.
He controls his own inner forces, and nothing can draw them out against his
will. By this continuous reflex of good thoughts, good impressions moving over
the surface of the mind, the tendency for doing good becomes strong, and as the
result we feel able to control the Indriyas (the sense-organs, the nerve-centres).
Thus alone will character be established, then alone a man gets to truth. Such a
man is safe for ever; he cannot do any evil. You may place him in any
company, there will be no danger for him. There is a still higher state than
having this good tendency, and that is the desire for liberation. You must
remember that freedom of the soul is the goal of all Yogas, and each one
equally leads to the same result. By work alone men may get to where Buddha
got largely by meditation or Christ by prayer. Buddha was a working Jnâni,
Christ was a Bhakta, but the same goal was reached by both of them. The
difficulty is here. Liberation means entire freedom — freedom from the
bondage of good, as well as from the bondage of evil. A golden chain is as
much a chain as an iron one. There is a thorn in my finger, and I use another to
take the first one out; and when I have taken it out, I throw both of them aside; I
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 ones, and the bad
impressions on the mind should be removed by the fresh waves of good ones,
until all that is evil almost disappears, or is subdued and held in control in a
corner of the mind; but after that, the good tendencies have also to be
conquered. Thus the "attached" becomes the "unattached". Work, but let not the
action or the thought produce a deep impression on the mind. Let the ripples
come and go, let huge actions proceed from the muscles and the brain, but let
them not make any deep impression on the soul.
How can this be done? We see that the impression of any action, to which we
attach ourselves, remains. I may meet hundreds of persons during the day, and
among them meet also one whom I love; and when I retire at night, I may try to
think of all the faces I saw, but only that face comes before the mind — the face
which I met perhaps only for one minute, and which I loved; 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 the faces that I saw pictured itself on the retina, and
the brain took the pictures in, and yet there was no similarity of effect upon the
mind. Most of the faces, perhaps, were entirely new faces, about which I had
never thought before, but that one face of which I got only a glimpse found
associations inside. Perhaps I had pictured him in my mind for years, knew
hundreds of things about him, and this one new vision of him awakened
hundreds of sleeping memories in my mind; and this one impression having
been repeated perhaps a hundred times more than those of the different faces
together, will produce a great effect on 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
Sânkhya, "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
knowledge 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 that
when we have gained the required knowledge, the book is of no more value to
us. Instead of that, however, we are identifying ourselves with nature; we are
thinking that the soul is for nature, that the spirit is for the flesh, and, as the
common saying has it, we think that man "lives to eat" and not "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
the deep impression on the soul, which binds us down and makes us work not
from freedom but like slaves.
The whole gist of this teaching is that you should work like a master and not as
a slave; work incessantly, but do not do slave's work. Do you not see how
everybody works? Nobody can be altogether at rest; ninety-nine per cent of
mankind work like slaves, and the result is misery; it is all selfish work. Work
through freedom! Work through love! The word "love" is very difficult to
understand; love never comes until there is freedom. There is no true love
possible 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 in him.
So when we ourselves work for the things of the world as slaves, there can be
no love in us, and our work is not true work. This is true of work done for
relatives and friends, and is true of work done for our own selves. Selfish work
is slave's work; and here is a test. Every act of love brings happiness; there is no
act of love which does not bring peace and blessedness as its reaction. Real
existence, real knowledge, and real love are eternally connected with one
another, the three in one: where one of them is, the others also must be; they are
the three aspects of the One without a second — the Existence - Knowledge -
Bliss. When that existence becomes relative, we see it as the world; that
knowledge becomes in its turn modified into the knowledge of the things of the
world; and that bliss forms the foundation of all true love known to the heart of
man. Therefore true love can never react so as to cause pain either to the lover
or to the beloved. Suppose a man loves a woman; he wishes to have her all to
himself and feels extremely jealous about her every movement; he wants her to
sit near him, to stand near him, and to eat and move at his bidding. He is a slave
to her and wishes to have her as his slave. That is not love; it is a kind of
morbid affection of the slave, insinuating itself as love. It cannot be love,
because it is painful; if she does not do what he wants, it brings him pain. With
love there is no painful reaction; love only brings a reaction of bliss; if it does
not, it is not love; it is 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 of pain or jealousy, no
selfish feeling, then you are in a fit state to be unattached.
Krishna says, "Look at Me, Arjuna! If I stop from work for one moment, the
whole universe will die. I have nothing to gain from work; I am the one Lord,
but why do I work? Because I love the world." God is unattached because He
loves; that real love makes us unattached. Wherever there is attachment, the
clinging to the things of the world, you must know that it is all physical
attraction between sets of particles of matter - something that attracts two
bodies nearer and nearer all the time and, if they cannot get near enough,
produces pain; but where there is real love, it does not rest on physical
attachment at all. Such lovers may be a thousand miles away from one another,
but their love will be all the same; it does not die, and will never produce any
painful reaction.
To attain this unattachment is almost a life-work, but as soon as we have
reached this point, we have attained the goal of love and become free; the
bondage of nature falls from us, and we see nature as she is; she forges no more
chains for us; we stand entirely free and take not the results of work into
consideration; who then cares for what the results may be?
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 the matter ends. In whatever
you do for a particular person, a city, or a state, assume the same attitude
towards it as you have towards your children — expect nothing in return. If you
can invariably take the position of a giver, in which everything given by you is
a free offering to the world, without any thought of return, then will your work
bring you no attachment. Attachment comes only where we expect a return.
If working like slaves results in selfishness and attachment, working as master
of our own mind gives rise to the bliss of non-attachment. We often talk of right
and justice, but we find that in the world right and justice are mere baby's talk.
There are two things which guide the conduct of men: might and mercy. The
exercise of might is invariably the exercise of selfishness. All men and women
try to make the most of whatever power or advantage they have. Mercy is
heaven itself; to be good, we have all to be merciful. Even justice and right
should stand on mercy. All thought of obtaining return for the work we do
hinders our spiritual progress; nay, in the end it brings misery. There is another
way in which this idea of mercy and selfless charity can be put into practice;
that is, by looking upon work as "worship" in case we believe in a Personal
God. Here we give up all the fruits our work unto the Lord, and worshipping
Him thus, we have no right to expect anything from man kind for the work we
do. The Lord Himself works incessantly and is ever without attachment. Just as
water cannot wet the lotus leaf, so work cannot bind the unselfish man by
giving rise to attachment to results. The selfless and unattached man may live in
the very heart of a crowded and sinful city; he will not be touched by sin.
This idea of complete self-sacrifice is illustrated in the following story: After
the battle of Kurukshetra the five Pândava brothers performed a great sacrifice
and made very large gifts to the poor. All 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 of whose body was golden, and the other half brown; and he began to roll
on the floor of the sacrificial hall. 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 to the poor and every one
became rich and happy? This was the most wonderful sacrifice any man ever
performed." 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 small gifts made to them for preaching and teaching.
There came in that land a three years' famine, and the poor Brahmin suffered
more than ever. At last when the family had starved for days, the father brought
home one morning a little barley flour, which he had been fortunate enough to
obtain, and he divided it into four parts, one for each member of the family.
They prepared it for their meal, and just as they were about to eat, there was a
knock at the door. The father opened it, and there stood a guest. Now in India a
guest is a sacred person; 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 the food, which the guest quickly ate and said, 'Oh,
sir, you have killed me; I 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, which he ate, 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
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 granules of that flour had fallen on the floor; and when I
rolled my body on them, half of it became golden, as you see. Since then I have
been travelling all over the world, hoping to find another sacrifice like that, but
nowhere have I found one; nowhere else has the other half of my body been
turned into gold. That is why I say this is no sacrifice."
This idea of charity is going out of India; great men are becoming fewer and
fewer. When I was first learning English, I read an English story book in which
there was a story about a dutiful boy who had gone out to work and had given
some of his money to his old mother, and this was praised in three or four
pages. What was that? No Hindu boy can ever understand the moral of that
story. Now I understand it when I hear the Western idea — every man for
himself. And some men take everything for themselves, and fathers and
mothers and wives and children go to the wall. That should never and nowhere
be the ideal of the householder.
Now you see what Karma-Yoga means; even at the point of death to help any
one, without asking questions. Be cheated millions of times and never ask a
question, and never think of what you are doing. Never vaunt of your gifts to
the poor or expect their gratitude, but rather be grateful to them for giving you
the occasion of practicing charity to them. Thus it is plain that to be an ideal
householder is a much more difficult task than to be an ideal Sannyasin; the true
life of work is indeed as hard as, if not harder than, the equally true life of
renunciation.

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second chapter from Karma yoga

Hello friends, hope you all fine by the grace of god.
second chapter from Karma yoga


                                  CHAPTER II

                 EACH IS GREAT IN HIS OWN PLACE

According to the Sânkhya philosophy, nature is composed of three forces
called, in Sanskrit, Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas. These as manifested in the
physical world are what we may call equilibrium, activity, and inertness.
Tamas is typified as darkness or inactivity; Rajas is activity, expressed as
attraction or repulsion; and Sattva is the equilibrium of the two.
In every man there are these three forces. Sometimes Tamas prevails. We
become lazy, we cannot move, we are inactive, bound down by certain ideas or
by mere dullness. At other times activity prevails, and at still other times that
calm balancing of both. Again, in different men, one of these forces is
generally predominant. The characteristic of one man is inactivity, dullness and
laziness; that of another, activity, power, manifestation of energy; and in still
another we find the sweetness, calmness, and gentleness, which are due to the
balancing of both action and inaction. So in all creation — in animals, plants,
and men — we find the more or less typical manifestation of all these different
forces.
Karma-Yoga has specially to deal with these three factors. By teaching 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 different countries the
significance of morality varies greatly. What is regarded as moral in one
country may in another be considered perfectly immoral. For instance, in one
country cousins may marry; in another, it is thought to be very immoral; in one,
men may marry their sisters-in-law; in another, it is regarded as immoral; in
one country people may marry only once; in another, many times; and so forth.
Similarly, in all other departments of morality, we find the standard varies
greatly — 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. In one
country, if a man does not do certain things, people will say he has acted
wrongly; while if he does those very things in another country, people will say
that he did not act rightly — and yet we know that there must be some
universal idea of duty. In the same way, one class of society thinks that certain
things are among its duty, while another class thinks quite the opposite and
would be horrified if it had to do those things. 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, and the way of the wise, who admit that, according to
our mental constitution or the different planes 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 the duty of one state of life, in one
set of circumstances, will not and cannot be that of another.
To illustrate: All great teachers have taught, "Resist not evil," that nonresistance
is the highest moral ideal. We all know that, if a certain number of us
attempted to put that maxim fully into practice, the whole social fabric would
fall to pieces, the wicked would take possession of our properties and our lives,
and would do whatever they liked with us. Even if only one day of such nonresistance
were practiced, it would lead to disaster. Yet, intuitively, in our heart
of hearts we feel the truth of the teaching "Resist not evil." This seems to us to
be the highest ideal; yet to teach this doctrine only would be equivalent to
condemning a vast portion of mankind. Not only so, it would be making men
feel that they were always doing wrong, and cause in them scruples of
conscience in all their actions; it would weaken them, and that constant selfdisapproval
would breed more vice than any other weakness would. To the
man who has begun to hate himself the gate to degeneration has already
opened; and the same is true of a nation.
Our first duty is not to hate ourselves, because to 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 recognise that
duty and morality vary under different circumstances; not that the man who
resists evil is doing what is always and in itself wrong, but that in the different
circumstances in which he is placed it may become even his duty to resist evil.
In reading the Bhagavad-Gita, many of you in Western countries may have felt
astonished at the second chapter, wherein Shri 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 nonresistance
was the highest ideal of love. This is a great lesson for us all to learn,
that in all matters the two extremes are alike. The extreme positive and the
extreme 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 in pitch, we do not hear it; when very high, we do not
hear it either. Of like nature is the difference between resistance and nonresistance.
One man does not resist because he is weak, lazy, and cannot, not
because he will not; the other man knows that he can strike an irresistible blow
if he likes; yet he not only does not strike, but blesses his enemies. The one
who from weakness resists not commits a sin, and as such cannot receive any
benefit from the 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 be careful about what
we really mean when we speak of this non-resistance and ideal love. We must
first take care to understand whether we have the power of resistance or not.
Then, having the power, if we renounce it and do not resist, we are doing a
grand act of love; but if we cannot resist, and yet, at the same time, try to
deceive ourselves into the belief that we are actuated by motives of the highest
love, we are doing the exact opposite. 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 Shri 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 central idea of Karma-Yoga. The Karma-Yogi is the man who
understands that the highest ideal is non-resistance, and who also knows that
this non-resistance is the highest manifestation of power in actual possession,
and also what is called the resisting of evil is but a step on the way towards the
manifestation of this highest power, namely, non-resistance. Before reaching
this highest ideal, man's duty is to resist evil; 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.
I once met a man in my country whom I had known before as a very stupid,
dull person, who knew nothing and had not the desire to know anything, and
was living the life of a brute. He asked me what he should do to know God,
how he was to get free. "Can you tell a lie?" I asked him. "No," he replied.
"Then you must learn to do so. It is better to tell a lie than to be a brute, or a log
of wood. You are inactive; you have not certainly reached the highest state,
which is beyond all actions, calm and serene; you are too dull even to do
something wicked." That was an extreme case, of course, and I was joking with
him; but what I meant was that a man must be active in order to pass through
activity to perfect calmness.
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 nobody, resist not evil,"
but we know what that kind of thing generally means in practice. 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 utter want of the calm of
non-resistance; we feel that it would be better for us to resist. If you desire
wealth, and know at the same time that the whole world regards him who aims
at wealth as a very wicked man, you, perhaps, will not dare to plunge into the
struggle for wealth, yet your mind will be 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 suffered and 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 they are all very little things; but until you have
fulfilled this desire, until you have passed through that activity, it is impossible
for you to come to the state of calmness, serenity, and self-surrender. These
ideas of serenity and renunciation have been preached for thousands of years;
everybody has heard of them from childhood, and yet we see very few in the
world who have really reached that stage. I do not know if I have seen twenty
persons in my life who are really calm and non-resisting, and I have travelled
over half the world.
Every man should take up his own ideal and endeavour to accomplish it. That
is a surer way of progress 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 crawls
the twenty miles, to reach the end exhausted and half-dead. That is like what
we generally try to do with the world. All the men and women, in any society,
are not of the same mind, capacity, or of the same power to do 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 realising his own ideal. Nor is it right that I should be
judged by your standard 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.
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 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 at the same time to make the ideal as near as possible
to the truth.
In the Hindu system of morality we find that this fact has been recognised from
very ancient times; and in their scriptures and books on ethics different rules
are laid down for the different classes of men — the householder, the
Sannyâsin (the man who has renounced the world), and the student.
The life of every individual, according to the Hindu scriptures, has its peculiar
duties apart from what belongs in common to universal humanity. The Hindu
begins life as a student; then he marries and becomes a householder; in old age
he retires; and lastly he gives up the world and becomes a Sannyasin. To each
of these stages of life certain duties are attached. No one of these stages is
intrinsically superior to another. The life of the married man is quite as great as
that of the celibate who has devoted himself to religious work. The scavenger
in the street is quite as great and glorious as the king on his throne. Take him
off his throne, make him do the work of the scavenger, and see how he fares.
Take up 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 four stages of life in India have in later times been
reduced to two — that of the householder and of the monk. The householder
marries and carries on his duties as a citizen, and the duty of the other is to
devote his energies wholly to religion, to preach and to worship God. I shall
read to you a few passages from the Mahâ-Nirvâna-Tantra, which treats of this
subject, and you will see that it is a very difficult task for a man to be a
householder, and perform all his duties perfectly:
The householder should be devoted to God; the knowledge of God should be his goal of life.
Yet he must work constantly, perform all his duties; he must give up the fruits of his actions to
God.
It is the most difficult thing in this world to work and not care for the result, to
help a man and never think that he ought to be grateful, to do some good work
and at the same time never look to see whether it brings you name or fame, or
nothing at all. Even the most arrant coward becomes brave when the world
praises him. A fool can do heroic deeds when the approbation of society is
upon him, but for a man to constantly do good without caring for the
approbation of his fellow men is indeed the highest sacrifice man can perform.
The great duty of the householder is to earn a living, but he must take care that
he does not do it by telling lies, or by cheating, or by robbing others; and he
must remember that his life is for the service of God, and the poor.
Knowing that mother and father are the visible representatives of God, the householder, always
and by all means, must please them. If the mother is pleased, and the father, God is pleased
with the man. That child is really a good child who never speaks harsh words to his parents.
Before parents one must not utter jokes, must not show restlessness, must not show anger or
temper. Before mother or father, a child must bow down low, and stand up in their presence,
and must not take a seat until they order him to sit.
If the householder has food and drink and clothes without first seeing that his mother and his
father, his children, his wife, and the poor, are supplied, he is committing a sin. The mother and
the father are the causes of this body; so a man must undergo a thousand troubles in order to do
good to them.
Even so is his duty to his wife. No man should scold his wife, and he must always maintain her
as if she were his own mother. And even when he is in the greatest difficulties and troubles, he
must not show anger to his wife.
He who thinks of another woman besides his wife, if he touches her even with his mind — that
man goes to dark hell.
Before women he must not talk improper language, and never brag of his powers. He must not
say, “I have done this, and I have done that.”
The householder must always please his wife with money, clothes, love, faith, and words like
nectar, and never do anything to disturb her. That man who has succeeded in getting the love of
a chaste wife has succeeded in his religion and has all the virtues.
The following are duties towards children:
A son should be lovingly reared up to his fourth year; he should be educated till he is sixteen.
When he is twenty years of age he should be employed in some work; he should then be treated
affectionately by his father as his equal. Exactly in the same manner the daughter should be
brought up, and should be educated with the greatest care. And when she marries, the father
ought to give her jewels and wealth.
Then the duty of the man is towards his brothers and sisters, and towards the children of his
brothers and sisters, if they are poor, and towards his other relatives, his friends and his
servants. Then his duties are towards the people of the same village, and the poor, and any one
that comes to him for help. Having sufficient means, if the householder does not take care to
give to his relatives and to the poor, know him to be only a brute; he is not a human being.
Excessive attachment to food, clothes, and the tending of the body, and dressing of the hair
should be avoided. The householder must be pure in heart and clean in body, always active and
always ready for work.
To his enemies the householder must be a hero. Them he must resist. That is the duty of the
householder. He must not sit down in a corner and weep, and talk nonsense about nonresistance.
If he does not show himself a hero to his enemies he has not done his duty. And to
his friends and relatives he must be as gentle as a lamb.
It is the duty of the householder not to pay reverence to the wicked; because, if he reverences
the wicked people of the world, he patronizes wickedness; and it will be a great mistake if he
disregards those who are worthy of respect, the good people. He must not be gushing in his
friendship; he must not go out of the way making friends everywhere; he must watch the
actions of the men he wants to make friends with, and their dealings with other men, reason
upon them, and then make friends.
These three things he must not talk of. He must not talk in public of his own fame; he must not
preach his own name or his own powers; he must not talk of his wealth, or of anything that has
been told to him privately.
A man must not say he is poor, or that he is wealthy — he must not brag of his wealth. Let him
keep his own counsel; this is his religious duty. This is not mere worldly wisdom; if a man does
not do so, he may be held to be immoral.
The householder is the basis, the prop, of the whole society. He is the principal
earner. The poor, the weak, the children and the women who do not work — all
live upon the householder; so there must be certain duties that he has to
perform, and these duties must make him feel strong to perform them, and not
make him think that he is doing things beneath his ideal. Therefore, if he has
done something weak, or has made some mistake, he must not say so in public;
and if he is engaged in some enterprise and knows he is sure to fail in it, he
must not speak of it. Such self-exposure is not only uncalled for, but also
unnerves the man and makes him unfit for the performance of his legitimate
duties in life. At the same time, he must struggle hard to acquire these things —
firstly, knowledge, and secondly, wealth. It is his duty, and if he does not do his
duty, he is nobody. A householder who does not struggle to get wealth is
immoral. If he is lazy and content to lead an idle life, he is immoral, because
upon him depend hundreds. If he gets riches, hundreds of others will be thereby
supported.
If there were not in this city hundreds who had striven to become rich, and who
had acquired wealth, where would all this civilization, and these alms-houses
and great houses be?
Going after wealth in such a case is not bad, because that wealth is for
distribution. The householder is the centre of life and society. It is a worship for
him to acquire and spend wealth nobly, for the householder who struggles to
become rich by good means and for good purposes is doing practically the
same thing for the attainment of salvation as the anchorite does in his cell when
he is praying; for in them we see only the different aspects of the same virtue of
self-surrender and self-sacrifice prompted by the feeling of devotion to God
and to all that is His.
He must struggle to acquire a good name by all means. He must not gamble, he
must not move in the company of the wicked, he must not tell lies, and must
not be the cause of trouble to others.
Often people enter into things they have not the means to accomplish, with the
result that they cheat others to attain their own ends. Then there is in all things
the time factor to be taken into consideration; what at one time might be a
failure, would perhaps at another time be a very great success.
The householder must speak the truth, and speak gently, using words which people like, which
will do good to others; nor should he talk of the business of other men.
The householder by digging tanks, by planting trees on the roadsides, by establishing resthouses
for men and animals, by making roads and building bridges, goes towards the same goal
as the greatest Yogi.
This is one part of the doctrine of Karma-Yoga — activity, the duty of the
householder. There is a passage later on, where it says that "if the householder
dies in battle, fighting for his country or his religion, he comes to the same goal
as the Yogi by meditation," showing thereby that what is duty for one is not
duty for another. At the same time, it does not say that this duty is lowering and
the other elevating. Each duty has its own place, and according to the
circumstances in which we are placed, we must perform our duties.
One idea comes out of all this — the condemnation of all weakness. This is a
particular idea in all our teachings which I like, either in philosophy, or in
religion, or in work. If you read the Vedas, you will find this word always
repeated — fearlessness — fear nothing. Fear is a sign of weakness. A man
must go about his duties without taking notice of the sneers and the ridicule of
the world.
If a man retires from 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 Sannyasins that came to his country,
"Which is the greater man — he who gives up the world and becomes a
Sannyasin, or he who lives in the world and performs his duties as a house
holder?" Many wise men sought to solve the problem. Some asserted that the
Sannyasin was the greater, upon which the king demanded that they should
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 Sannyasin, and the king similarly inquired of him
also. He answered, "Each, O king, is equally great in his place." "Prove this to
me," asked the king. "I will prove it to you," said the Sannyasin, "but you must
first come and live as I do for a few days, that I may be able to prove to you
what I say." The king consented and followed the Sannyasin out of his own
territory and passed through many other countries until they came to a great
kingdom. In the capital of that kingdom a great ceremony was going on. The
king and the Sannyasin heard the noise of drums and music, and heard also the
criers; the people were assembled in the streets in gala dress, and a great
proclamation was being made. The king and the Sannyasin stood there to see
what was going on. The crier was proclaiming loudly 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.
Each princess 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 again the richest, and so on. All the princes of the
neighbourhood put on their bravest attire and presented themselves before her.
Sometimes they too had their own criers to enumerate their advantages and the
reasons why they hoped the princess would choose them. The princess was
taken round on a throne, in the most splendid array, and looked at and heard
about them. If she was not pleased with what she saw and heard, 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 of flowers over him and he became her husband.
The princess of the country to which our king and the Sannyasin had come was
having one of these interesting 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
man, but she could not find the right one to please her. Several times these
meetings had taken place, but the princess could not select a husband. This
meeting was the most splendid of all; more people than ever had come to it.
The princess came in on a throne, and the bearers carried her from place to
place. She did not seem to care for any one, and every one became
disappointed that this meeting also was going to be a failure. Just then came a
young man, a Sannyasin, handsome as if the sun had come down to the earth,
and stood in one corner of the assembly, watching what was going on. The
throne with the princess came near him, and as soon as she saw the beautiful
Sannyasin, she stopped and threw the garland over him. The young Sannyasin
seized the garland and threw it off, exclaiming, "What nonsense is this? I am a
Sannyasin. What is marriage to me?" The king of that country thought that
perhaps this man was poor and so dared not marry the princess, and said to
him, "With my daughter goes half my kingdom now, and the whole kingdom
after my death!" and put the garland again on the Sannyasin. The young man
threw it off once more, saying, "Nonsense! I 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,
"I must marry this man or I shall die"; and she went after him to bring him
back. Then our other Sannyasin, who had brought the king there, said to him,
"King, let us follow this pair"; so they walked after them, but at a good distance
behind. The young Sannyasin who had refused to marry the princess walked
out into the country for several miles. When he came to a forest and entered
into it, the princess followed him, and the other two followed them. Now this
young Sannyasin was well acquainted with that forest and knew all the intricate
paths in it. He suddenly passed 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 a tree and began to weep, for she did not know the way out. Then
our king and the other Sannyasin 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."
Now a little bird and his wife and their three little ones 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 we do? 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, to which they
added fuel 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. We are householders; it is our duty to feed
any one who comes to the house. I must do what I can, I will give them my
body." So he plunged 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.
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 go in vain; let them have my body also."
Then she fell 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.
Amazed at what they saw, the three people could not of course eat these birds.
They passed the night without food, and in the morning the king and the
Sannyasin showed the princess the way, and she went back to her father.
Then the Sannyasin 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
look at 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.

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First chapter from karma yoga

First chapter from karma yoga
                                                      CHAPTER I

             KARMA IN ITS EFFECT ON CHARACTER

The word Karma is derived from the Sanskrit Kri, to do; all action 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 mankind is knowledge. That is the one ideal placed
before us by Eastern philosophy. Pleasure is not the goal of man, but
knowledge. Pleasure and happiness come to an end. It is a mistake 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 to strive for. 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, and that he learns as much from
evil as from good. As pleasure and pain pass before his soul they have upon it
different pictures, and the result of these combined impressions is what is called
man's "character". If you take the character of any man, it really is but the
aggregate of tendencies, the sum total of the bent of his mind; you will find that
misery and happiness are 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 the
world has produced, I dare say, in the vast majority of cases, it would be found
that it was misery that taught more than happiness, it was poverty that taught
more than wealth, it was blows that brought out their inner fire more than
praise.
Now this knowledge, again, is inherent in man. No knowledge comes from
outside; it is all inside. What we say a man "knows", should, in strict
psychological language, be what he "discovers" or "unveils"; what a man
"learns" is really what he "discovers", by taking the cover off 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 thought in his mind and discovered a new link among them,
which we call the law of gravitation. It was not in the apple nor in anything in
the centre of the earth.
All knowledge, therefore, 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 all-knowing,
omniscient. There have been omniscient men, and, I believe, there will be yet;
and that there will be myriads of them in the cycles to come. Like fire in a piece
of flint, knowledge exists in the mind; suggestion is the friction which brings it
out. So with all our feelings and action — 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 — every one of these we may find, if we calmly study
our own selves, to have been brought out from within ourselves by so many
blows. The result is what we are. All these blows taken together are called
Karma — work, action. Every mental and physical blow that is given to the
soul, by which, as it were, fire is struck from it, and by which its own power
and knowledge are discovered, is Karma, this word being used in its widest
sense. Thus we are all doing Karma all the time. I am talking to you: that is
Karma. You are listening: that is Karma. We breathe: that is Karma. We walk:
Karma. Everything we do, physical or mental, is Karma, and it leaves its marks
on us.
There are certain works which are, as it were, the aggregate, the sum total, of a
large number of smaller 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 it; it is
only when they become the big aggregate that we hear. Similarly, every
pulsation of the heart is work. Certain kinds of work 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 of the character of a man, look not at his
great performances. Every fool may become a hero at one time or another.
Watch a man do his most common actions; those are indeed the things which
will tell you the real character of a great man. Great occasions rouse even the
lowest of human beings to some kind of greatness, but he alone is the really
great man whose character is great always, the same wherever he be.
Karma in its effect on character is the most tremendous power that man has to
deal with. Man is, as it were, a centre, and is attracting all the powers of the
universe towards himself, and in this centre is fusing them all and again sending
them off in a big current. Such a centre is the real man — the almighty, the
omniscient — and he draws the whole universe towards him. Good and bad,
misery and happiness, all are running towards him and clinging round him; and
out of them he fashions the mighty stream of tendency called character and
throws it outwards. As he has the power of drawing in anything, so has he 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, cities, ships, or menof-
war, all these are simply the manifestation of the will of man; and this will is
caused by character, and character is manufactured by Karma. As is Karma, so
is the manifestation of the will. The men of mighty will the world has produced
have all been tremendous workers — gigantic souls, with wills powerful
enough to overturn worlds, wills they got by persistent work, through ages, and
ages. Such a gigantic will as that of a Buddha or a Jesus could not be obtained
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 had gone; millions are still living. Millions and millions
of petty kings like Buddha's father had been in the world. If it was only a case
of hereditary transmission, how do you account for this petty prince, who was
not, perhaps, obeyed by his own servants, producing this son, whom half a
world worships? How do you explain the gulf between the carpenter and his
son, whom millions of human beings worship as God? It cannot be solved by
the theory of heredity. The gigantic will which Buddha and Jesus threw over
the world, 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, even rolling down to the
present day.
All this is determined by Karma, work. No one can get anything unless he earns
it. This is an eternal law. We may sometimes think it is not so, but in the long
run we become convinced of it. A man may struggle all his life for riches; he
may cheat thousands, but he finds at last that he did not deserve to become rich,
and his life becomes a trouble and a nuisance to him. We may go on
accumulating things for our physical enjoyment, but only what we earn is really
ours. A fool may buy all the books in the world, and they will be in his library;
but he will be able to read only those that he deserves to; 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 wish
ourselves to be, we have the power to make ourselves. If what we are now has
been the result of our own past actions, it certainly follows that whatever we
wish to be in future can be produced by our present actions; so we have to
know how to act. You will say, “What is the use of learning how to work?
Everyone works in some way or other in this world.” But there is such a thing
as frittering away our energies. With regard to Karma-Yoga, the Gita says that
it is doing work with cleverness and as a science; by knowing how to work, one
can obtain the greatest results. You must remember that all 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, so is knowing; the different works are like
blows to bring them out, to cause these giants to wake up.
Man works with various motives. There cannot be work without motive. Some
people want to get fame, and they work for fame. Others want money, and they
work for money. Others want to have power, and they work for power. Others
want to get to heaven, and they work for the same. Others want to leave a name
when they die, as they do in China, where no man gets a title until he is dead;
and that is a better way, after all, than with us. When a man does something
very good there, they give a title of nobility to his father, who is dead, or to his
grandfather. Some people work for that. Some of the followers of certain
Mohammedan sects work all their lives to have a big tomb built for them when
they die. I know sects among whom, as soon as a child is born, a tomb is
prepared for it; that is among them the most important work a man has to do,
and the bigger and the 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 obtain from them a passport
to heaven. They think that this kind of beneficence will clear them and they will
go scot-free in spite of their sinfulness. Such are some of the various motives
for work.
Work for work's sake. There are some 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 even to go to heaven. They work just because good will come of it.
There are others who do good to the poor and help mankind from still higher
motives, because they believe in doing good and love good. The motive for
name and fame seldom brings immediate results, as a rule; they come to us
when we are old and have almost done with life. If a man works without any
selfish motive in view, does he not gain anything? Yes, he gains the highest.
Unselfishness is more paying, only people have not the patience to practice it. It
is more paying from the point of view of health also. Love, truth, and
unselfishness are not merely moral figures of speech, but they form our highest
ideal, because in them lies such a manifestation of power. In the first place, a
man who can work for five days, or even for five minutes, without any selfish
motive whatever, without thinking of future, of heaven, of punishment, or
anything of the kind, has in him the capacity to become a powerful moral giant.
It is hard to do it, but in the heart of our hearts we know its value, and the good
it brings. It is the greatest manifestation of power — this tremendous restraint;
self-restraint is a manifestation of greater power than all outgoing action. A
carriage with four horses may rush down a hill unrestrained, or the coachman
may curb the horses. Which is the greater manifestation of power, to let them
go or to hold them? A cannonball flying through the air goes a long distance
and falls. Another is cut short in its flight by striking against a wall, and the
impact generates intense heat. All outgoing energy following a selfish motive is
frittered away; it will not cause power to return to you; but if restrained, it will
result in development of power. This self-control will tend to produce a mighty
will, a character which makes a Christ or a Buddha. Foolish men do not know
this secret; they nevertheless want to rule mankind. Even a fool may rule the
whole world if he works and waits. Let him wait a few years, restrain that
foolish idea of governing; and when that idea is wholly gone, he will be a
power in the world. The majority of us cannot see beyond a few years, just as
some 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 become
immoral and wicked. This is our weakness, our powerlessness.
Even the lowest forms of work are not to be despised. Let the man, who knows
no better, work for selfish ends, for name and fame; but everyone should
always try to get towards higher and higher motives and to understand them.
"To work we have the right, but not to the fruits thereof:" Leave the fruits
alone. Why care for results? If you wish to help a man, never think what that
man's attitude should be towards you. If you want to do a great or a good work,
do not trouble to think what the result will be.
There arises a difficult question in this ideal of work. Intense activity is
necessary; we must always work. We cannot live a minute without work. What
then becomes of rest? Here is one side of the life-struggle — work, in which we
are whirled rapidly round. And here is the other — that of calm, retiring
renunciation: everything is peaceful around, there is very little of noise and
show, only nature with her animals and flowers and mountains. Neither of them
is a perfect picture. A man used to solitude, if brought in contact with the
surging whirlpool of the world, 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,
deprived of the weight of water on it that had kept it together. Can a man who
has been used to the turmoil and the rush of life live at ease if he comes to a
quiet place? He suffers and perchance may lose his mind. The ideal man is he
who, in the midst of the greatest silence and solitude, finds the intensest
activity, and in the midst of the intensest activity finds the silence and solitude
of the desert. He has learnt the secret of restraint, he has controlled himself. He
goes through the streets of a big city with all its traffic, and his mind is as calm
as if he were in a cave, where not a sound could reach him; and he is intensely
working all the time. That is the ideal of Karma-Yoga, and if you have attained
to that you have really learnt 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 prompts us; and, almost without exception,
in the first years, we shall find that our motives are always selfish; but
gradually this selfishness will melt by persistence, till at last will come the time
when we shall be able to do really unselfish work. We may all hope that some
day or other, as we struggle through the paths of life, there will come a time
when we shall become perfectly unselfish; and the moment we attain to that, all
our powers will be concentrated, and the knowledge which is ours will be
manifest.

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A little talk about our Life and how God is connected to us

Dear friends, sisters and brothers, you all must have come across many difficult times in your life, you must have thought that, why this is happening to you?  when this times are going to be over? Why god didn't came  to easy your pain?
But this questions are critical to answer, i think god should take some time and answer us.
But if i say he does. then you might think that i am bluffing. But yes he does, our life, our destiny are all decided by our actions. Peoples who believe in himself and god and know what his/her duty is, those people always found a ray of hope  amid dark situation, where you couldn't make any decisions.  I think To help us, god transforms into real people, animals, any thing. Many times you might have also experience that, But gods way of work is highly mystical and mysterious, you can only relate the incidents looking backward at your life. Then only you can realize that it was some how best thing might have happened to you.

In Hindu religion, which is considered the oldest religion of the world, has many scholarly books which are known to be written by the gods themselves, contains solution for every problem a person faces in his life. Among many topics that i am going to discuss through subsequent posts, today i am starting KARMA YOGA.

Concept of karma yoga came from Shree Krishna (According to Hindu religion Shree Krishna is thought as incarnation of Lord vishnu), when he helped his friend Arjun to fought the battle of Mahabharat, in battle field of kurukshetra. seeing Arjuna emotional and renounced to fight( he was a brave fighter, but he was fighting against his own uncles army), Shree Krishna cleared his mental weakness, and clearly defined what duty is, all their conversation is packed in one book called Bhagwat Gita. and karma yoga is only a part of Gita, which clarifies every thing about Action and inaction.

Swamy vivekananda had written a book on Karma yoga which is included in Complete works of swamy vivekananda vol I. There he had elaborately explained KARMA YOGA in eight chapters.
So, in next eight posts i will just post those chapter one by one.

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