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.
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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