Karma Yoga
CHAPTER V
WE HELP OURSELVES, NOT THE WORLD
Before considering further how devotion to duty helps us in our
spiritual progress, let me place before you in a brief compass
another aspect of what we in India mean by Karma. In every
religion there are three parts: philosophy, mythology, and
ritual. Philosophy of course is the essence of every religion;
mythology explains and illustrates it by means of the more or
less legendary lives of great men, stories and fables of
wonderful things, and so on; ritual gives to that philosophy a
still more concrete form, so that every one may grasp it -
ritual is in fact concretised philosophy. This ritual is Karma;
it is necessary in every religion, because most of us cannot
understand abstract spiritual things until we grow much
spiritually. It is easy for men to think that they can
understand anything; but when it comes to practical experience,
they find that abstract ideas are often very hard to comprehend.
Therefore symbols are of great help, and we cannot dispense with
the symbolical method of putting things before us. From time
immemorial symbols have been used by all kinds of religions. In
one sense we cannot think but in symbols; words themselves are
symbols of thought. In another sense everything in the universe
may be looked upon as a symbol. The whole universe is a symbol,
and God is the essence behind. This kind of symbology is not
simply the creation of man; it is not that certain people
belonging to a religion sit down together and think out certain
symbols, and bring them into existence out of their own minds.
The symbols of religion have a natural growth. Otherwise, why is
it that certain symbols are associated with certain ideas in the
mind of almost every one? Certain symbols are universally
prevalent. Many of you may think that the cross first came into
existence as a symbol in connection with the Christian religion,
but as a matter of fact it existed before Christianity was,
before Moses was born, before the Vedas were given out, before
there was any human record of human things. The cross may be
found to have been in existence among the Aztecs and the
Phoenicians; every race seems to have had the cross. Again, the
symbol of the crucified Saviour, of a man crucified upon a
cross, appears to have been known to almost every nation. The
circle has been a great symbol throughout the world. Then there
is the most universal of all symbols, the Swastika. At one time
it was thought that the Buddhists carried it all over the world
with them, but it has been found out that ages before Buddhism
it was used among nations. In Old Babylon and in Egypt it was to
be found. What does this show? All these symbols could not have
been purely conventional. There must be some reason for them;
some natural association between them and the human mind.
Language is not the result of convention; it is not that people
ever agreed to represent certain ideas by certain words; there
never was an idea without a corresponding word or a word without
a corresponding idea; ideas and words are in their nature
inseparable. The symbols to represent ideas may be sound symbols
or colour symbols. Deaf and dumb people have to think with other
than sound symbols. Every thought in the mind has a form as its
counterpart. This is called in Sanskrit philosophy Nâma-Rupa -
name and form. It is as impossible to create by convention a
system of symbols as it is to create a language. In the world's
ritualistic symbols we have an expression of the religious
thought of humanity. It is easy to say that there is no use of
rituals and temples and all such paraphernalia; every baby says
that in modern times. But it must be easy for all to see that
those who worship inside a temple are in many respects different
from those who will not worship there. Therefore the association
of particular temples, rituals, and other concrete forms with
particular religions has a tendency to bring into the minds of
the followers of those religions the thoughts for which those
concrete things stand as symbols; and it is not wise to ignore
rituals and symbology altogether. The study and practice of
these things form naturally a part of Karma-Yoga.
There are many other aspects of this science of work. One among
them is to know the relation between thought and word and what
can be achieved by the power of the word. In every religion the
power of the word is recognised, so much so that in some of them
creation itself is said to have come out of the word. The
external aspect of the thought of God is the Word, and as God
thought and willed before He created, creation came out of the
Word. In this stress and hurry of our materialistic life, our
nerves lose sensibility and become hardened. The older we grow,
the longer we are knocked about in the world, the more callous
we become; and we are apt to neglect things that even happen
persistently and prominently around us. Human nature, however,
asserts itself sometimes, and we are led to inquire into and
wonder at some of these common occurrences; wondering thus is
the first step in the acquisition of light. Apart from the
higher philosophic and religious value of the Word, we may see
that sound symbols play a prominent part in the drama of human
life. I am talking to you. I am not touching you; the pulsations
of the air caused by my speaking go into your ear, they touch
your nerves and produce effects in your minds. You cannot resist
this. What can be more wonderful than this? One man calls
another a fool, and at this the other stands up and clenches his
fist and lands a blow on his nose. Look at the power of the
word! There is a woman weeping and miserable; another woman
comes along and speaks to her a few gentle words, the doubled up
frame of the weeping woman becomes straightened at once, her
sorrow is gone and she already begins to smile. Think of the
power of words! They are a great force in higher philosophy as
well as in common life. Day and night we manipulate this force
without thought and without inquiry. To know the nature of this
force and to use it well is also a part of Karma-Yoga.
Our duty to others means helping others; doing good to the
world. Why should we do good to the world? Apparently to help
the world, but really to help ourselves. We should always try to
help the world, that should be the highest motive in us; but if
we consider well, we find that the world does not require our
help at all. This world was not made that you or I should come
and help it. I once read a sermon in which it was said, "All
this beautiful world is very good, because it gives us time and
opportunity to help others." Apparently, this is a very
beautiful sentiment, but is it not a blasphemy to say that the
world needs our help? We cannot deny that there is much misery
in it; to go out and help others is, therefore, the best thing
we can do, although in the long run, we shall find that helping
others is only helping ourselves. As a boy I had some white
mice. They were kept in a little box in which there were little
wheels, and when the mice tried to cross the wheels, the wheels
turned and turned, and the mice never got anywhere. So it is
with the world and our helping it. The only help is that we get
moral exercise. This world is neither good nor evil; each man
manufactures a world for himself. If a blind man begins to think
of the world, it is either as soft or hard, or as cold or hot.
We are a mass of happiness or misery; we have seen that hundreds
of times in our lives. As a rule, the young are optimistic and
the old pessimistic. The young have life before them; the old
complain their day is gone; hundreds of desires, which they
cannot fulfil struggle in their hearts. Both are foolish
nevertheless. Life is good or evil according to the state of
mind in which we look at it, it is neither by itself. Fire, by
itself, is neither good nor evil. When it keeps us warm we say,
"How beautiful is fire!" When it burns our fingers, we blame it.
Still, in itself it is neither good nor bad. According as we use
it, it produces in us the feeling of good or bad; so also is
this world. It is perfect. By perfection is meant that it is
perfectly fitted to meet its ends. We may all be perfectly sure
that it will go on beautifully well without us, and we need not
bother our heads wishing to help it.
Yet we must do good; the desire to do good is the highest motive
power we have, if we know all the time that it is a privilege to
help others. Do not stand on a high pedestal and take five cents
in your hand and say, "Here, my poor man," but be grateful that
the poor man is there, so that by making a gift to him you are
able to help yourself. It is not the receiver that is blessed,
but it is the giver. Be thankful that you are allowed to
exercise your power of benevolence and mercy in the world, and
thus become pure and perfect. All good acts tend to make us pure
and perfect. What can we do at best? Build a hospital, make
roads, or erect charity asylums. We may organise a charity and
collect two or three millions of dollars, build a hospital with
one million, with the second give balls and drink champagne, and
of the third let the officers steal half, and leave the rest
finally to reach the poor; but what are all these? One mighty
wind in five minutes can break all your buildings up. What shall
we do then? One volcanic eruption may sweep away all our roads
and hospitals and cities and buildings. Let us give up all this
foolish talk of doing good to the world. It is not waiting for
your or my help; yet we must work and constantly do good,
because it is a blessing to ourselves. That is the only way we
can become perfect. No beggar whom we have helped has ever owed
a single cent to us; we owe everything to him, because he has
allowed us to exercise our charity on him. It is entirely wrong
to think that we have done, or can do, good to the world, or to
think that we have helped such and such people. It is a foolish
thought, and all foolish thoughts bring misery. We think that we
have helped some man and expect him to thank us, and because he
does not, unhappiness comes to us. Why should we expect anything
in return for what we do? Be grateful to the man you help, think
of him as God. Is it not a great privilege to be allowed to
worship God by helping our fellow men? If we were really
unattached, we should escape all this pain of vain expectation,
and could cheerfully do good work in the world. Never will
unhappiness or misery come through work done without attachment.
The world will go on with its happiness and misery through
eternity.
There was a poor man who wanted some money; and somehow he had
heard that if he could get hold of a ghost, he might command him
to bring money or anything else he liked; so he was very anxious
to get hold of a ghost. He went about searching for a man who
would give him a ghost, and at last he found a sage with great
powers, and besought his help. The sage asked him what he would
do with a ghost. I want a ghost to work for me; teach me how to
get hold of one, sir; I desire it very much," replied the man.
But the sage said, "Don't disturb yourself, go home." The next
day the man went again to the sage and began to weep and pray,
"Give me a ghost; I must have a ghost, sir, to help me." At last
the sage was disgusted, and said, "Take this charm, repeat this
magic word, and a ghost will come, and whatever you say to him
he will do. But beware; they are terrible beings, and must be
kept continually busy. If you fail to give him work, he will
take your life." The man replied, "That is easy; I can give him
work for all his life." Then he went to a forest, and after long
repetition of the magic word, a huge ghost appeared before him,
and said, "I am a ghost. I have been conquered by your magic;
but you must keep me constantly employed. The moment you fail to
give me work I will kill you." The man said, "Build me a
palace," and the ghost said, "It is done; the palace is built."
"Bring me money," said the man. "Here is your money," said the
ghost. "Cut this forest down, and build a city in its place."
"That is done," said the ghost, "anything more?" Now the man
began to be frightened and thought he could give him nothing
more to do; he did everything in a trice. The ghost said, "Give
me something to do or I will eat you up." The poor man could
find no further occupation for him, and was frightened. So he
ran and ran and at last reached the sage, and said, "Oh, sir,
protect my life!" The sage asked him what the matter was, and
the man replied, "I have nothing to give the ghost to do.
Everything I tell him to do he does in a moment, and he
threatens to eat me up if I do not give him work." Just then the
ghost arrived, saying, "I'll eat you up," and he would have
swallowed the man. The man began to shake, and begged the sage
to save his life. The sage said, "I will find you a way out.
Look at that dog with a curly tail. Draw your sword quickly and
cut the tail off and give it to the ghost to straighten out."
The man cut off the dog's tail and gave it to the ghost, saying,
"Straighten that out for me." The ghost took it and slowly and
carefully straightened it out, but as soon as he let it go, it
instantly curled up again. Once more he laboriously straightened
it out, only to find it again curled up as soon as he attempted
to let go of it. Again he patiently straightened it out, but as
soon as he let it go, it curled up again. So he went on for days
and days, until he was exhausted and said, "I was never in such
trouble before in my life. I am an old veteran ghost, but never
before was I in such trouble." "I will make a compromise with
you ;" he said to the man, "you let me off and I will let you
keep all I have given you and will promise not to harm you." The
man was much pleased, and accepted the offer gladly.
This world is like a dog's curly tail, and people have been
striving to straighten it out for hundreds of years; but when
they let it go, it has curled up again. How could it be
otherwise? One must first know how to work without attachment,
then one will not be a fanatic. When we know that this world is
like a dog's curly tail and will never get straightened, we
shall not become fanatics. If there were no fanaticism in the
world, it would make much more progress than it does now. It is
a mistake to think that fanaticism can make for the progress of
mankind. On the contrary, it is a retarding element creating
hatred and anger, and causing people to fight each other, and
making them unsympathetic. We think that whatever we do or
possess is the best in the world, and what we do not do or
possess is of no value. So, always remember the instance of the
curly tail of the dog whenever you have a tendency to become a
fanatic. You need not worry or make yourself sleepless about the
world; it will go on without you. When you have avoided
fanaticism, then alone will you work well. It is the
level-headed man, the calm man, of good judgment and cool
nerves, of great sympathy and love, who does good work and so
does good to himself. The fanatic is foolish and has no
sympathy; he can never straighten the world, nor himself become
pure and perfect.
To recapitulate the chief points in today's lecture: First, we
have to bear in mind that we are all debtors to the world and
the world does not owe us anything. It is a great privilege for
all of us to be allowed to do anything for the world. In helping
the world we really help ourselves. The second point is that
there is a God in this universe. It is not true that this
universe is drifting and stands in need of help from you and me.
God is ever present therein, He is undying and eternally active
and infinitely watchful. When the whole universe sleeps, He
sleeps not; He is working incessantly; all the changes and
manifestations of the world are His. Thirdly, we ought not to
hate anyone. This world will always continue to be a mixture of
good and evil. Our duty is to sympathise with the weak and to
love even the wrongdoer. The world is a grand moral gymnasium
wherein we have all to take exercise so as to become stronger
and stronger spiritually. Fourthly, we ought not to be fanatics
of any kind, because fanaticism is opposed to love. You hear
fanatics glibly saying, "I do not hate the sinner. I hate the
sin," but I am prepared to go any distance to see the face of
that man who can really make a distinction between the sin and
the sinner. It is easy to say so. If we can distinguish well
between quality and substance, we may become perfect men. It is
not easy to do this. And further, the calmer we are and the less
disturbed our nerves, the more shall we love and the better will
our work be.
CHAPTER VI
NON-ATTACHMENT IS COMPLETE SELF-ABNEGATION
Just as every action that emanates from us comes back to us as
reaction, even so our actions may act on other people and theirs
on us. Perhaps all of you have observed it as a fact that when
persons do evil actions, they become more and more evil, and
when they begin to do good, they become stronger and stronger
and learn to do good at all times. This intensification of the
influence of action cannot be explained on any other ground than
that we can act and react upon each other. To take an
illustration from physical science, when I am doing a certain
action, my mind may be said to be in a certain state of
vibration; all minds which are in similar circumstances will
have the tendency to be affected by my mind. If there are
different musical instruments tuned alike in one room, all of
you may have noticed that when one is struck, the others have
the tendency to vibrate so as to give the same note. So all
minds that have the same tension, so to say, will be equally
affected by the same thought. Of course, this influence of
thought on mind will vary according to distance and other
causes, but the mind is always open to affection. Suppose I am
doing an evil act, my mind is in a certain state of vibration,
and all minds in the universe, which are in a similar state,
have the possibility of being affected by the vibration of my
mind. So, when I am doing a good action, my mind is in another
state of vibration; and all minds similarly strung have the
possibility of being affected by my mind; and this power of mind
upon mind is more or less according as the force of the tension
is greater or less.
Following this simile further, it is quite possible that, just
as light waves may travel for millions of years before they
reach any object, so thought waves may also travel hundreds of
years before they meet an object with which they vibrate in
unison. It is quite possible, therefore, that this atmosphere of
ours is full of such thought pulsations, both good and evil.
Every thought projected from every brain goes on pulsating, as
it were, until it meets a fit object that will receive it. Any
mind which is open to receive some of these impulses will take
them immediately. So, when a man is doing evil actions, he has
brought his mind to a certain state of tension and all the waves
which correspond to that state of tension, and which may be said
to be already in the atmosphere, will struggle to enter into his
mind. That is why an evil-doer generally goes on doing more and
more evil. His actions become intensified. Such, also will be
the case with the doer of good; he will open himself to all the
good waves that are in the atmosphere, and his good actions also
will become intensified. We run, therefore, a twofold danger in
doing evil: first, we open ourselves to all the evil influences
surrounding us; secondly, we create evil which affects others,
may be hundreds of years hence. In doing evil we injure
ourselves and others also. In doing good we do good to ourselves
and to others as well; and, like all other forces in man, these
forces of good and evil also gather strength from outside.
According to Karma-Yoga, the action one has done cannot be
destroyed until it has borne its fruit; no power in nature can
stop it from yielding its results. If I do an evil action, I
must suffer for it; there is no power in this universe to stop
or stay it. Similarly, if I do a good action, there is no power
in the universe which can stop its bearing good results. The
cause must have its effect; nothing can prevent or restrain
this. Now comes a very fine and serious question about
Karma-Yoga - namely, that these actions of ours, both good and
evil, are intimately connected with each other. We cannot put a
line of demarcation and say, this action is entirely good and
this entirely evil. There is no action which does not bear good
and evil fruits at the same time. To take the nearest example: I
am talking to you, and some of you, perhaps, think I am doing
good; and at the same time I am, perhaps, killing thousands of
microbes in the atmosphere; I am thus doing evil to something
else. When it is very near to us and affects those we know, we
say that it is very good action if it affects them in a good
manner. For instance, you may call my speaking to you very good,
but the microbes will not; the microbes you do not see, but
yourselves you do see. The way in which my talk affects you is
obvious to you, but how it affects the microbes is not so
obvious. And so, if we analyse our evil actions also, we may
find that some good possibly results from them somewhere. He who
in good action sees that there is something evil in it, and in
the midst of evil sees that there is something good in it
somewhere, has known the secret of work.
But what follows from it? That, howsoever we may try, there
cannot be any action which is perfectly pure, or any which is
perfectly impure, taking purity and impurity in the sense of
injury and non-injury. We cannot breathe or live without
injuring others, and every bit of the food we eat is taken away
from another’s mouth. Our very lives are crowding out other
lives. It may be men, or animals, or small microbes, but some
one or other of these we have to crowd out. That being the case,
it naturally follows that perfection can never be attained by
work. We may work through all eternity, but there will be no way
out of this intricate maze. You may work on, and on, and on;
there will be no end to this inevitable association of good and
evil in the results of work.
The second point to consider is, what is the end of work? We
find the vast majority of people in every country believing that
there will be a time when this world will become perfect, when
there will be no disease, nor death, nor unhappiness, nor
wickedness. That is a very good idea, a very good motive power
to inspire and uplift the ignorant; but if we think for a
moment, we shall find on the very face of it that it cannot be
so. How can it be, seeing that good and evil are the obverse and
reverse of the same coin? How can you have good without evil at
the same time? What is meant by perfection? A perfect life is a
contradiction in terms. Life itself is a state of continuous
struggle between ourselves and everything outside. Every moment
we are fighting actually with external nature, and if we are
defeated, our life has to go. It is, for instance, a continuous
struggle for food and air. If food or air fails, we die. Life is
not a simple and smoothly flowing thing, but it is a compound
effect. This complex struggle between something inside and the
external world is what we call life. So it is clear that when
this struggle ceases, there will be an end of life.
What is meant by ideal happiness is the cessation of this
struggle. But then life will cease, for the struggle can only
cease when life itself has ceased. We have seen already that in
helping the world we help ourselves. The main effect of work
done for others is to purify ourselves. By means of the constant
effort to do good to others we are trying to forget ourselves;
this forgetfulness of self is the one great lesson we have to
learn in life. Man thinks foolishly that he can make himself
happy, and after years of struggle finds out at last that true
happiness consists in killing selfishness and that no one can
make him happy except himself. Every act of charity, every
thought of sympathy, every action of help, every good deed, is
taking so much of self-importance away from our little selves
and making us think of ourselves as the lowest and the least,
and, therefore, it is all good. Here we find that Jnâna, Bhakti,
and Karma - all come to one point. The highest ideal is eternal
and entire self-abnegation, where there is no "I," but all is
"Thou"; and whether he is conscious or unconscious of it,
Karma-Yoga leads man to that end. A religious preacher may
become horrified at the idea of an Impersonal God; he may insist
on a Personal God and wish to keep up his own identity and
individuality, whatever he may mean by that. But his ideas of
ethics, if they are really good, cannot but be based on the
highest self-abnegation. It is the basis of all morality; you
may extend it to men, or animals, or angels, it is the one basic
idea, the one fundamental principle running through all ethical
systems.
You will find various classes of men in this world. First, there
are the God-men, whose self-abnegation is complete, and who do
only good to others even at the sacrifice of their own lives.
These are the highest of men. If there are a hundred of such in
any country, that country need never despair. But they are
unfortunately too few. Then there are the good men who do good
to others so long as it does not injure themselves. And there is
a third class who, to do good to themselves, injure others. It
is said by a Sanskrit poet that there is a fourth unnamable
class of people who injure others merely for injury's sake. Just
as there are at one pole of existence the highest good men, who
do good for the sake of doing good, so, at the other pole, there
are others who injure others just for the sake of the injury.
They do not gain anything thereby, but it is their nature to do
evil.
Here are two Sanskrit words. The one is Pravritti, which means
revolving towards, and the other is Nivritti, which means
revolving away. The "revolving towards" is what we call the
world, the "I and mine”; it includes all those things which are
always enriching that "me" by wealth and money and power, and
name and fame, and which are of a grasping nature, always
tending to accumulate everything in one centre, that centre
being "myself". That is the Pravritti, the natural tendency of
every human being; taking everything from everywhere and heaping
it around one centre, that centre being man's own sweet self.
When this tendency begins to break, when it is Nivritti or
"going away from," then begin morality and religion. Both
Pravritti and Nivritti are of the nature of work: the former is
evil work, and the latter is good work. This Nivritti is the
fundamental basis of all morality and all religion, and the very
perfection of it is entire self-abnegation, readiness to
sacrifice mind and body and everything for another being. When a
man has reached that state, he has attained to the perfection of
Karma-Yoga. This is the highest result of good works. Although a
man has not studied a single system of philosophy, although he
does not believe in any God, and never has believed, although he
has not prayed even once in his whole life, if the simple power
of good actions has brought him to that state where he is ready
to give up his life and all else for others, he has arrived at
the same point to which the religious man will come through his
prayers and the philosopher through his knowledge; and so you
may find that the philosopher, the worker, and the devotee, all
meet at one point, that one point being self-abnegation. However
much their systems of philosophy and religion may differ, all
mankind stand in reverence and awe before the man who is ready
to sacrifice himself for others. Here, it is not at all any
question of creed, or doctrine - even men who are very much
opposed to all religious ideas, when they see one of these acts
of complete self-sacrifice, feel that they must revere it. Have
you not seen even a most bigoted Christian, when he reads Edwin
Arnold's Light of Asia, stand in reverence of Buddha, who
Preached no God, preached nothing but self-sacrifice? The only
thing is that the bigot does not know that his own end and aim
in life is exactly the same as that of those from whom he
differs. The worshipper, by keeping constantly before him the
idea of God and a surrounding of good, comes to the same point
at last and says, "Thy will be done," and keeps nothing to
himself. That is self-abnegation. The philosopher, with his
knowledge, sees that the seeming self is a delusion and easily
gives it up. It is self-abnegation. So Karma, Bhakti, and Jnana
all meet here; and this is what was meant by all the great
preachers of ancient times, when they taught that God is not the
world. There is one thing which is the world and another which
is God; and this distinction is very true. What they mean by
world is selfishness. Unselfishness is God. One may live on a
throne, in a golden palace, and be perfectly unselfish; and then
he is in God. Another may live in a hut and wear rags, and have
nothing in the world; yet, if he is selfish, he is intensely
merged in the world.
To come back to one of our main points, we say that we cannot do
good without at the same time doing some evil, or do evil
without doing some good. Knowing this, how can we work? There
have, therefore, been sects in this world who have in an
astoundingly preposterous way preached slow suicide as the only
means to get out of the world, because if a man lives, he has to
kill poor little animals and plants or do injury to something or
some one. So according to them the only way out of the world is
to die. The Jains have preached this doctrine as their highest
ideal. This teaching seems to be very logical. But the true
solution is found in the Gita. It is the theory of
non-attachment, to be attached to nothing while doing our work
of life. Know that you are separated entirely from the world,
though you are in the world, and that whatever you may be doing
in it, you are not doing that for your own sake. Any action that
you do for yourself will bring its effect to bear upon you. If
it is a good action, you will have to take the good effect, and
if bad, you will have to take the bad effect; but any action
that is not done for your own sake, whatever it be, will have no
effect on you. There is to be found a very expressive sentence
in our scriptures embodying this idea: "Even if he kill the
whole universe (or be himself killed), he is neither the killer
nor the killed, when he knows that he is not acting for himself
at all." Therefore Karma-Yoga teaches, "Do not give up the
world; live in the world, imbibe its influences as much as you
can; but if it be for your own enjoyment's sake, work not at
all." Enjoyment should not be the goal. First kill your self and
then take the whole world as yourself; as the old Christians
used to say, "The old man must die." This old man is the selfish
idea that the whole world is made for our enjoyment. Foolish
parents teach their children to pray, "O Lord, Thou hast created
this sun for me and this moon for me," as if the Lord has had
nothing else to do than to create everything for these babies.
Do not teach your children such nonsense. Then again, there are
people who are foolish in another way: they teach us that all
these animals were created for us to kill and eat, and that this
universe is for the enjoyment of men. That is all foolishness. A
tiger may say, "Man was created for me" and pray, "O Lord, how
wicked are these men who do not come and place themselves before
me to be eaten; they are breaking Your law." If the world is
created for us, we are also created for the world. That this
world is created for our enjoyment is the most wicked idea that
holds us down. This world is not for our sake. Millions pass out
of it every year; the world does not feel it; millions of others
are supplied in their place. Just as much as the world is for
us, so we also are for the world.
To work properly, therefore, you have first to give up the idea
of attachment. Secondly, do not mix in the fray, hold yourself
as a witness and go on working. My master used to say, "Look
upon your children as a nurse does." The nurse will take your
baby and fondle it and play with it and behave towards it as
gently as if it were her own child; but as soon as you give her
notice to quit, she is ready to start off bag and baggage from
the house. Everything in the shape of attachment is forgotten;
it will not give the ordinary nurse the least pang to leave your
children and take up other children. Even so are you to be with
all that you consider your own. You are the nurse, and if you
believe in God, believe that all these things which you consider
yours are really His. The greatest weakness often insinuates
itself as the greatest good and strength. It is a weakness to
think that any one is dependent on me, and that I can do good to
another. This belief is the mother of all our attachment, and
through this attachment comes all our pain. We must inform our
minds that no one in this universe depends upon us; not one
beggar depends on our charity; not one soul on our kindness; not
one living thing on our help. All are helped on by nature, and
will be so helped even though millions of us were not here. The
course of nature will not stop for such as you and me; it is, as
already pointed out, only a blessed privilege to you and to me
that we are allowed, in the way of helping others, to educate
ourselves. This is a great lesson to learn in life, and when we
have learned it fully, we shall never be unhappy; we can go and
mix without harm in society anywhere and everywhere. You may
have wives and husbands, and regiments of servants, and kingdoms
to govern; if only you act on the principle that the world is
not for you and does not inevitably need you, they can do you no
harm. This very year some of your friends may have died. Is the
world waiting without going on, for them to come again? Is its
current stopped? No, it goes on. So drive out of your mind the
idea that you have to do something for the world; the world does
not require any help from you. It is sheer nonsense on the part
of any man to think that he is born to help the world; it is
simply pride, it is selfishness insinuating itself in the form
of virtue. When you have trained your mind and your nerves to
realise this idea of the world's non-dependence on you or on
anybody, there will then be no reaction in the form of pain
resulting from work. When you give something to a man and expect
nothing - do not even expect the man to be grateful - his
ingratitude will not tell upon you, because you never expected
anything, never thought you had any right to anything in the way
of a return. You gave him what he deserved; his own Karma got it
for him; your Karma made you the carrier thereof. Why should you
be proud of having given away something? You are the porter that
carried the money or other kind of gift, and the world deserved
it by its own Karma. Where is then the reason for pride in you?
There is nothing very great in what you give to the world. When
you have acquired the feeling of non-attachment, there will then
be neither good nor evil for you. It is only selfishness that
causes the difference between good and evil. It is a very hard
thing to understand, but you will come to learn in time that
nothing in the universe has power over you until you allow it to
exercise such a power. Nothing has power over the Self of man,
until the Self becomes a fool and loses independence. So, by
non-attachment, you overcome and deny the power of anything to
act upon you. It is very easy to say that nothing has the right
to act upon you until you allow it to do so; but what is the
true sign of the man who really does not allow anything to work
upon him, who is neither happy nor unhappy when acted upon by
the external world? The sign is that good or ill fortune causes
no change in his mind: in all conditions he continues to remain
the same.
There was a great sage in India called Vyâsa. This Vyâsa is
known as the author of the Vedanta aphorisms, and was a holy
man. His father had tried to become a very perfect man and had
failed. His grandfather had also tried and failed. His
great-grandfather had similarly tried and failed. He himself did
not succeed perfectly, but his son, Shuka, was born perfect.
Vyasa taught his son wisdom; and after teaching him the
knowledge of truth himself, he sent him to the court of King
Janaka. He was a great king and was called Janaka Videha. Videha
means "without a body". Although a king, he had entirely
forgotten that he was a body; he felt that he was a spirit all
the time. This boy Shuka was sent to be taught by him. The king
knew that Vyasa's son was coming to him to learn wisdom: so he
made certain arrangements beforehand. And when the boy presented
himself at the gates of the palace, the guards took no notice of
him whatsoever. They only gave him a seat, and he sat there for
three days and nights, nobody speaking to him, nobody asking him
who he was or whence he was. He was the son of a very great
sage, his father was honoured by the whole country, and he
himself was a most respectable person; yet the low, vulgar
guards of the palace would take no notice of him. After that,
suddenly, the ministers of the king and all the big officials
came there and received him with the greatest honours. They
conducted him in and showed him into splendid rooms, gave him
the most fragrant baths and wonderful dresses, and for eight
days they kept him there in all kinds of luxury. That solemnly
serene face of Shuka did not change even to the smallest extent
by the change in the treatment accorded to him; he was the same
in the midst of this luxury as when waiting at the door. Then he
was brought before the king. The king was on his throne, music
was playing, and dancing and other amusements were going on. The
king then gave him a cup of milk, full to the brim, and asked
him to go seven times round the hall without spilling even a
drop. The boy took the cup and proceeded in the midst of the
music and the attraction of the beautiful faces. As desired by
the king, seven times did he go round, and not a drop of the
milk was spilt. The boy's mind could not be attracted by
anything in the world, unless he allowed it to affect him. And
when he brought the cup to the king, the king said to him, "What
your father has taught you, and what you have learned yourself,
I can only repeat. You have known the Truth; go home."
Thus the man that has practiced control over himself cannot be
acted upon by anything outside; there is no more slavery for
him. His mind has become free. Such a man alone is fit to live
well in the world. We generally find men holding two opinions
regarding the world. Some are pessimists and say, “How horrible
this world is, how wicked!" Some others are optimists and say,
"How beautiful this world is, how wonderful!" To those who have
not controlled their own minds, the world is either full of evil
or at best a mixture of good and evil. This very world will
become to us an optimistic world when we become masters of our
own minds. Nothing will then work upon us as good or evil; we
shall find everything to be in its proper place, to be
harmonious. Some men, who begin by saying that the world is a
hell, often end by saying that it is a heaven when they succeed
in the practice of self-control. If we are genuine Karma-Yogis
and wish to train ourselves to that attainment of this state,
wherever we may begin we are sure to end in perfect
self-abnegation; and as soon as this seeming self has gone, the
whole world, which at first appears to us to be filled with
evil, will appear to be heaven itself and full of blessedness.
Its very atmosphere will be blessed; every human face there will
be god. Such is the end and aim of Karma-Yoga, and such is its
perfection in practical life.
Our various Yogas do not conflict with each other; each of them
leads us to the same goal and makes us perfect. Only each has to
be strenuously practiced. The whole secret is in practicing.
First you have to hear, then think, and then practice. This is
true of every Yoga. You have first to hear about it and
understand what it is; and many things which you do not
understand will be made clear to you by constant hearing and
thinking. It is hard to understand everything at once. The
explanation of everything is after all in yourself. No one was
ever really taught by another; each of us has to teach himself.
The external teacher offers only the suggestion which rouses the
internal teacher to work to understand things. Then things will
be made clearer to us by our own power of perception and
thought, and we shall realise them in our own souls; and that
realisation will grow into the intense power of will. First it
is feeling, then it becomes willing, and out of that willing
comes the tremendous force for work that will go through every
vein and nerve and muscle, until the whole mass of your body is
changed into an instrument of the unselfish Yoga of work, and
the desired result of perfect self-abnegation and utter
unselfishness is duly attained. This attainment does not depend
on any dogma, or doctrine, or belief. Whether one is Christian,
or Jew, or Gentile, it does not matter. Are you unselfish? That
is the question. If you are, you will be perfect without reading
a single religious book, without going into a single church or
temple. Each one of our Yogas is fitted to make man perfect even
without the help of the others, because they have all the same
goal in view. The Yogas of work, of wisdom, and of devotion are
all capable of serving as direct and independent means for the
attainment of Moksha. "Fools alone say that work and philosophy
are different, not the learned.” The learned know that, though
apparently different from each other, they at last lead to the
same goal of human perfection.
CHAPTER VII
FREEDOM
In addition to meaning work, we have stated that psychologically
the word Karma also implies causation. Any work, any action, any
thought that produces an effect is called a Karma. Thus the law
of Karma means the law of causation, of inevitable cause and
sequence. Wheresoever there is a cause, there an effect must be
produced; this necessity cannot be resisted, and this law of
Karma, according to our philosophy, is true throughout the whole
universe. Whatever we see, or feel, or do, whatever action there
is anywhere in the universe, while being the effect of past work
on the one hand, becomes, on the other, a cause in its turn, and
produces its own effect. It is necessary, together with this, to
consider what is meant by the word "law". By law is meant the
tendency of a series to repeat itself. When we see one event
followed by another, or sometimes happening simultaneously with
another, we expect this sequence or co-existence to recur. Our
old logicians and philosophers of the Nyâyâ school call this law
by the name of Vyâpti. According to them, all our ideas of law
are due to association. A series of phenomena becomes associated
with things in our mind in a sort of invariable order, so that
whatever we perceive at any time is immediately referred to
other facts in the mind. Any one idea or, according to our
psychology, any one wave that is produced in the mind-stuff,
Chitta, must always give rise to many similar waves. This is the
psychological idea of association, and causation is only an
aspect of this grand pervasive principle of association. This
pervasiveness of association is what is, in Sanskrit, called
Vyâpti. In the external world the idea of law is the same as in
the internal - the expectation that a particular phenomenon will
be followed by another, and that the series will repeat itself.
Really speaking, therefore, law does not exist in nature.
Practically it is an error to say that gravitation exists in the
earth, or that there is any law existing objectively anywhere in
nature. Law is the method, the manner in which our mind grasps a
series of phenomena; it is all in the mind. Certain phenomena,
happening one after another or together, and followed by the
conviction of the regularity of their recurrence - thus enabling
our minds to grasp the method of the whole series - constitute
what we call law.
The next question for consideration is what we mean by law being
universal. Our universe is that portion of existence which is
characterized by what the Sanskrit psychologists call
Desha-kâla-nimitta, or what is known to European psychology as
space, time, and causation. This universe is only a part of
infinite existence, thrown into a peculiar mould, composed of
space, time, and causation. It necessarily follows that law is
possible only within this conditioned universe; beyond it there
cannot be any law. When we speak of the universe, we only mean
that portion of existence which is limited by our mind - the
universe of the senses, which we can see, feel, touch, hear,
think of, imagine. This alone is under law; but beyond it
existence cannot be subject to law, because causation does not
extend beyond the world of our minds. Anything beyond the range
of our mind and our senses is not bound by the law of causation,
as there is no mental association of things in the region beyond
the senses, and no causation without association of ideas. It is
only when "being'' or existence gets moulded into name and form
that it obeys the law of causation, and is said to be under law;
because all law has its essence in causation. Therefore we see
at once that there cannot be any such thing as free will; the
very words are a contradiction, because will is what we know,
and everything that we know is within our universe, and
everything within our universe is moulded by the conditions of
space, time, and causation. Everything that we know, or can
possibly know, must be subject to causation, and that which
obeys the law of causation cannot be free. It is acted upon by
other agents, and becomes a cause in its turn. But that which
has become converted into the will, which was not the will
before, but which, when it fell into this mould of space, time,
and causation, became converted into the human will, is free;
and when this will gets out of this mould of space, time, and
causation, it will be free again. From freedom it comes, and
becomes moulded into this bondage, and it gets out and goes back
to freedom again.
The question has been raised as to from whom this universe
comes, in whom it rests, and to whom it goes; and the answer has
been given that from freedom it comes, in bondage it rests, and
goes back into that freedom again. So, when we speak of man as
no other than that infinite being which is manifesting itself,
we mean that only one very small part thereof is man; this body
and this mind which we see are only one part of the whole, only
one spot of the infinite being. This whole universe is only one
speck of the infinite being; and all our laws, our bondages, our
joys and our sorrows, our happinesses and our expectations, are
only within this small universe; all our progression and
digression are within its small compass. So you see how childish
it is to expect a continuation of this universe - the creation
of our minds - and to expect to go to heaven, which after all
must mean only a repetition of this world that we know. You see
at once that it is an impossible and childish desire to make the
whole of infinite existence conform to the limited and
conditioned existence which we know. When a man says that he
will have again and again this same thing which he is hating
now, or, as I sometimes put it, when he asks for a comfortable
religion, you may know that he has become so degenerate that he
cannot think of anything higher than what he is now; he is just
his little present surroundings and nothing more. He has
forgotten his infinite nature, and his whole idea is confined to
these little joys, and sorrows, and heart-jealousies of the
moment. He thinks that this finite thing is the infinite; and
not only so, he will not let this foolishness go. He clings on
desperately unto Trishnâ, and the thirst after life, what the
Buddhists call Tanhâ and Tissâ. There may be millions of kinds
of happiness, and beings, and laws, and progress, and causation,
all acting outside the little universe that we know; and, after
all, the whole of this comprises but one section of our infinite
nature.
To acquire freedom we have to get beyond the limitations of this
universe; it cannot be found here. Perfect equilibrium, or what
the Christians call the peace that passeth all understanding,
cannot be had in this universe, nor in heaven, nor in any place
where our mind and thoughts can go, where the senses can feel,
or which the imagination can conceive. No such place can give us
that freedom, because all such places would be within our
universe, and it is limited by space, time, and causation. There
may be places that are more ethereal than this earth of ours,
where enjoyments may be keener, but even those places must be in
the universe and, therefore, in bondage to law; so we have to go
beyond, and real religion begins where this little universe
ends. These little joys, and sorrows, and knowledge of things
end there, and the reality begins. Until we give up the thirst
after life, the strong attachment to this our transient
conditioned existence we have no hope of catching even a glimpse
of that infinite freedom beyond. It stands to reason then that
there is only one way to attain to that freedom which is the
goal of all the noblest aspirations of mankind, and that is by
giving up this little life, giving up this little universe,
giving up this earth, giving up heaven, giving up the body,
giving up the mind, giving up everything that is limited and
conditioned. If we give up our attachment to this little
universe of the senses or of the mind, we shall be free
immediately. The only way to come out of bondage is to go beyond
the limitations of law, to go beyond causation.
But it is a most difficult thing to give up the clinging to this
universe; few ever attain to that. There are two ways to do that
mentioned in our books. One is called the "Neti, Neti" (not
this, not this), the other is called "Iti" (this); the former is
the negative, and the latter is the positive way. The negative
way is the most difficult. It is only possible to the men of the
very highest, exceptional minds and gigantic wills who simply
stand up and say, "No, I will not have this," and the mind and
body obey their will, and they come out successful. But such
people are very rare. The vast majority of mankind choose the
positive way, the way through the world, making use of all the
bondages themselves to break those very bondages. This is also a
kind of giving up; only it is done slowly and gradually, by
knowing things, enjoying things and thus obtaining experience,
and knowing the nature of things until the mind lets them all go
at last and becomes unattached. The former way of obtaining
non-attachment is by reasoning, and the latter way is through
work and experience. The first is the path of Jnâna-Yoga, and is
characterized by the refusal to do any work; the second is that
of Karma-Yoga, in which there is no cessation from work. Every
one must work in the universe. Only those who are perfectly
satisfied with the Self, whose desires do not go beyond the
Self, whose mind never strays out of the Self, to whom the Self
is all in all, only those do not work. The rest must work. A
current rushing down of its own nature falls into a hollow and
makes a whirlpool, and, after running a little in that
whirlpool, it emerges again in the form of the free current to
go on unchecked. Each human life is like that current. It gets
into the whirl, gets involved in this world of space, time, and
causation, whirls round a little, crying out, "my father, my
brother, my name, my fame", and so on, and at last emerges out
of it and regains its original freedom. The whole universe is
doing that. Whether we know it or not, whether we are conscious
or unconscious of it, we are all working to get out of the dream
of the world. Man's experience in the world is to enable him to
get out of its whirlpool.
What is Karma-Yoga? The knowledge of the secret of work. We see
that the whole universe is working. For what? For salvation, for
liberty; from the atom to the highest being, working for the one
end, liberty for the mind, for the body, for the spirit. All
things are always trying to get freedom, flying away from
bondage. The sun, the moon, the earth, the planets, all are
trying to fly away from bondage. The centrifugal and the
centripetal forces of nature are indeed typical of our universe.
Instead of being knocked about in this universe, and after long
delay and thrashing, getting to know things as they are, we
learn from Karma-Yoga the secret of work, the method of work,
the organising power of work. A vast mass of energy may be spent
in vain if we do not know how to utilise it. Karma-Yoga makes a
science of work; you learn by it how best to utilise all the
workings of this world. Work is inevitable, it must be so; but
we should work to the highest purpose. Karma-Yoga makes us admit
that this world is a world of five minutes, that it is a
something we have to pass through; and that freedom is not here,
but is only to be found beyond. To find the way out of the
bondages of the world we have to go through it slowly and
surely. There may be those exceptional persons about whom I just
spoke, those who can stand aside and give up the world, as a
snake casts off its skin and stands aside and looks at it. There
are no doubt these exceptional beings; but the rest of mankind
have to go slowly through the world of work. Karma-Yoga shows
the process, the secret, and the method of doing it to the best
advantage.
What does it say? "Work incessantly, but give up all attachment
to work." Do not identify yourself with anything. Hold your mind
free. All this that you see, the pains and the miseries, are but
the necessary conditions of this world; poverty and wealth and
happiness are but momentary; they do not belong to our real
nature at all. Our nature is far beyond misery and happiness,
beyond every object of the senses, beyond the imagination; and
yet we must go on working all the time. "Misery comes through
attachment, not through work." As soon as we identify ourselves
with the work we do, we feel miserable; but if we do not
identify ourselves with it, we do not feel that misery. If a
beautiful picture belonging to another is burnt, a man does not
generally become miserable; but when his own picture is burnt,
how miserable he feels! Why? Both were beautiful pictures,
perhaps copies of the same original; but in one case very much
more misery is felt than in the other. It is because in one case
he identifies himself with the picture, and not in the other.
This "I and mine" causes the whole misery. With the sense of
possession comes selfishness, and selfishness brings on misery.
Every act of selfishness or thought of selfishness makes us
attached to something, and immediately we are made slaves. Each
wave in the Chitta that says "I and mine" immediately puts a
chain round us and makes us slaves; and the more we say "I and
mine", the more slavery grows, the more misery increases.
Therefore Karma-Yoga tells us to enjoy the beauty of all the
pictures in the world, but not to identify ourselves with any of
them. Never say "mine". Whenever we say a thing is "mine",
misery will immediately come. Do not even say "my child" in your
mind. Possess the child, but do not say "mine". If you do, then
will come the misery. Do not say “my house," do not say "my
body". The whole difficulty is there. The body is neither yours,
nor mine, nor anybody's. These bodies are coming and going by
the laws of nature, but we are free, standing as witness. This
body is no more free than a picture or a wall. Why should we be
attached so much to a body? If somebody paints a picture, he
does it and passes on. Do not project that tentacle of
selfishness, "I must possess it". As soon as that is projected,
misery will begin.
So Karma-Yoga says, first destroy the tendency to project this
tentacle of selfishness, and when you have the power of checking
it, hold it in and do not allow the mind to get into the ways of
selfishness. Then you may go out into the world and work as much
as you can. Mix everywhere, go where you please; you will never
be contaminated with evil. There is the lotus leaf in the water;
the water cannot touch and adhere to it; so will you be in the
world. This is called "Vairâgya", dispassion or non-attachment.
I believe I have told you that without non-attachment there
cannot be any kind of Yoga. Non-attachment is the basis of all
the Yogas. The man who gives up living in houses, wearing fine
clothes, and eating good food, and goes into the desert, may be
a most attached person. His only possession, his own body, may
become everything to him; and as he lives he will be simply
struggling for the sake of his body. Non-attachment does not
mean anything that we may do in relation to our external body,
it is all in the mind. The binding link of "I and mine" is in
the mind. If we have not this link with the body and with the
things of the senses, we are non-attached, wherever and whatever
we may be. A man may be on a throne and perfectly non-attached;
another man may be in rags and still very much attached. First,
we have to attain this state of non-attachment and then to work
incessantly. Karma-Yoga gives us the method that will help us in
giving up all attachment, though it is indeed very hard.
Here are the two ways of giving up all attachment. The one is
for those who do not believe in God, or in any outside help.
They are left to their own devices; they have simply to work
with their own will, with the powers of their mind and
discrimination, saying, "I must be non-attached". For those who
believe in God there is another way, which is much less
difficult. They give up the fruits of work unto the Lord; they
work and are never attached to the results. Whatever they see,
feel, hear, or do, is for Him. For whatever good work we may do,
let us not claim any praise or benefit. It is the Lord’s; give
up the fruits unto Him. Let us stand aside and think that we are
only servants obeying the Lord, our Master, and that every
impulse for action comes from Him every moment. Whatever thou
worshippest, whatever thou perceivest, whatever thou doest, give
up all unto Him and be at rest. Let us be at peace, perfect
peace, with ourselves, and give up our whole body and mind and
everything as an eternal sacrifice unto the Lord. Instead of the
sacrifice of pouring oblations into the fire, perform this one
great sacrifice day and night - the sacrifice of your little
self. "In search of wealth in this world, Thou art the only
wealth I have found; I sacrifice myself unto Thee. In search of
some one to be loved, Thou art the only one beloved I have
found; I sacrifice myself unto Thee." Let us repeat this day and
night, and say, "Nothing for me; no matter whether the thing is
good, bad, or indifferent; I do not care for it; I sacrifice all
unto Thee." Day and night let us renounce our seeming self until
it becomes a habit with us to do so, until it gets into the
blood, the nerves, and the brain, and the whole body is every
moment obedient to this idea of self-renunciation. Go then into
the midst of the battlefield, with the roaring cannon and the
din of war, and you will find yourself to be free and at peace.
Karma-Yoga teaches us that the ordinary idea of duty is on the
lower plane; nevertheless, all of us have to do our duty. Yet we
may see that this peculiar sense of duty is very often a great
cause of misery. Duty becomes a disease with us; it drags us
ever forward. It catches hold of us and makes our whole life
miserable. It is the bane of human life. This duty, this idea of
duty is the midday summer sun which scorches the innermost soul
of mankind. Look at those poor slaves to duty! Duty leaves them
no time to say prayers, no time to bathe. Duty is ever on them.
They go out and work. Duty is on them! They come home and think
of the work for the next day. Duty is on them! It is living a
slave's life, at last dropping down in the street and dying in
harness, like a horse. This is duty as it is understood. The
only true duty is to be unattached and to work as free beings,
to give up all work unto God. All our duties are His. Blessed
are we that we are ordered out here. We serve our time; whether
we do it ill or well, who knows? If we do it well, we do not get
the fruits. If we do it ill, neither do we get the care. Be at
rest, be free, and work. This kind of freedom is a very hard
thing to attain. How easy it is to interpret slavery as duty -
the morbid attachment of flesh for flesh as duty! Men go out
into the world and struggle and fight for money or for any other
thing to which they get attached. Ask them why they do it. They
say, "It is a duty”. It is the absurd greed for gold and gain,
and they try to cover it with a few flowers.
What is duty after all? It is really the impulsion of the flesh,
of our attachment; and when an attachment has become
established, we call it duty. For instance, in countries where
there is no marriage, there is no duty between husband and wife;
when marriage comes, husband and wife live together on account
of attachment; and that kind of living together becomes settled
after generations; and when it becomes so settled, it becomes a
duty. It is, so to say, a sort of chronic disease. When it is
acute, we call it disease; when it is chronic, we call it
nature. It is a disease. So when attachment becomes chronic, we
baptise it with the high sounding name of duty. We strew flowers
upon it, trumpets sound for it, sacred texts are said over it,
and then the whole world fights, and men earnestly rob each
other for this duty's sake. Duty is good to the extent that it
checks brutality. To the lowest kinds of men, who cannot have
any other ideal, it is of some good; but those who want to be
Karma-Yogis must throw this idea of duty overboard. There is no
duty for you and me. Whatever you have to give to the world, do
give by all means, but not as a duty. Do not take any thought of
that. Be not compelled. Why should you be compelled? Everything
that you do under compulsion goes to build up attachment. Why
should you have any duty? Resign everything unto God. In this
tremendous fiery furnace where the fire of duty scorches
everybody, drink this cup of nectar and be happy. We are all
simply working out His will, and have nothing to do with rewards
and punishments. If you want the reward, you must also have the
punishment; the only way to get out of the punishment is to give
up the reward. The only way of getting out of misery is by
giving up the idea of happiness, because these two are linked to
each other. On one side there is happiness, on the other there
is misery. On one side there is life, on the other there is
death. The only way to get beyond death is to give up the love
of life. Life and death are the same thing, looked at from
different points. So the idea of happiness without misery, or of
life without death, is very good for school-boys and children;
but the thinker sees that it is all a contradiction in terms and
gives up both. Seek no praise, no reward, for anything you do.
No sooner do we perform a good action than we begin to desire
credit for it. No sooner do we give money to some charity than
we want to see our names blazoned in the papers. Misery must
come as the result of such desires. The greatest men in the
world have passed away unknown. The Buddhas and the Christs that
we know are but second-rate heroes in comparison with the
greatest men of whom the world knows nothing. Hundreds of these
unknown heroes have lived in every country working silently.
Silently they live and silently they pass away; and in time
their thoughts find expression in Buddhas or Christs, and it is
these latter that become known to us. The highest men do not
seek to get any name or fame from their knowledge. They leave
their ideas to the world; they put forth no claims for
themselves and establish no schools or systems in their name.
Their whole nature shrinks from such a thing. They are the pure
Sâttvikas, who can never make any stir, but only melt down in
love. I have seen one such Yogi who lives in a cave in India. He
is one of the most wonderful men I have ever seen. He has so
completely lost the sense of his own individuality that we may
say that the man in him is completely gone, leaving behind only
the all comprehending sense of the divine. If an animal bites
one of his arms, he is ready to give it his other arm also, and
say that it is the Lord's will. Everything that comes to him is
from the Lord. He does not show himself to men, and yet he is a
magazine of love and of true and sweet ideas.
Next in order come the men with more Rajas, or activity,
combative natures, who take up the ideas of the perfect ones and
preach them to the world. The highest kind of men silently
collect true and noble ideas, and others - the Buddhas and
Christs - go from place to place preaching them and working for
them. In the life of Gautama Buddha we notice him constantly
saying that he is the twenty-fifth Buddha. The twenty-four
before him are unknown to history, although the Buddha known to
history must have built upon foundations laid by them. The
highest men are calm, silent, and unknown. They are the men who
really know the power of thought; they are sure that, even if
they go into a cave and close the door and simply think five
true thoughts and then pass away, these five thoughts of theirs
will live through eternity. Indeed such thoughts will penetrate
through the mountains, cross the oceans, and travel through the
world. They will enter deep into human hearts and brains and
raise up men and women who will give them practical expression
in the workings of human life. These Sattvika men are too near
the Lord to be active and to fight, to be working, struggling,
preaching and doing good, as they say, here on earth to
humanity. The active workers, however good, have still a little
remnant of ignorance left in them. When our nature has yet some
impurities left in it, then alone can we work. It is in the
nature of work to be impelled ordinarily by motive and by
attachment. In the presence of an ever active Providence who
notes even the sparrow's fall, how can man attach any importance
to his own work? Will it not be a blasphemy to do so when we
know that He is taking care of the minutest things in the world?
We have only to stand in awe and reverence before Him saying,
"Thy will be done". The highest men cannot work, for in them
there is no attachment. Those whose whole soul is gone into the
Self, those whose desires are confined in the Self, who have
become ever associated with the Self, for them there is no work.
Such are indeed the highest of mankind; but apart from them
every one else has to work. In so working we should never think
that we can help on even the least thing in this universe. We
cannot. We only help ourselves in this gymnasium of the world.
This is the proper attitude of work. If we work in this way, if
we always remember that our present opportunity to work thus is
a privilege which has been given to us, we shall never be
attached to anything. Millions like you and me think that we are
great people in the world; but we all die, and in five minutes
the world forgets us. But the life of God is infinite. "Who can
live a moment, breathe a moment, if this all-powerful One does
not will it?" He is the ever active Providence. All power is His
and within His command. Through His command the winds blow, the
sun shines, the earth lives, and death stalks upon the earth. He
is the all in all; He is all and in all. We can only worship
Him. Give up all fruits of work; do good for its own sake; then
alone will come perfect non-attachment. The bonds of the heart
will thus break, and we shall reap perfect freedom. This freedom
is indeed the goal of Karma-Yoga.
CHAPTER VIII
THE IDEAL OF KARMA-YOGA
The grandest idea in the religion of the Vedanta is that we may
reach the same goal by different paths; and these paths I have
generalised into four, viz those of work, love, psychology, and
knowledge. But you must, at the same time, remember that these
divisions are not very marked and quite exclusive of each other.
Each blends into the other. But according to the type which
prevails, we name the divisions. It is not that you can find men
who have no other faculty than that of work, nor that you can
find men who are no more than devoted worshippers only, nor that
there are men who have no more than mere knowledge. These
divisions are made in accordance with the type or the tendency
that may be seen to prevail in a man. We have found that, in the
end, all these four paths converge and become one. All religions
and all methods of work and worship lead us to one and the same
goal.
I have already tried to point out that goal. It is freedom as I
understand it. Everything that we perceive around us is
struggling towards freedom, from the atom to the man, from the
insentient, lifeless particle of matter to the highest existence
on earth, the human soul. The whole universe is in fact the
result of this struggle for freedom. In all combinations every
particle is trying to go on its own way, to fly from the other
particles; but the others are holding it in check. Our earth is
trying to fly away from the sun, and the moon from the earth.
Everything has a tendency to infinite dispersion. All that we
see in the universe has for its basis this one struggle towards
freedom; it is under the impulse of this tendency that the saint
prays and the robber robs. When the line of action taken is not
a proper one, we call it evil; and when the manifestation of it
is proper and high, we call it good. But the impulse is the
same, the struggle towards freedom. The saint is oppressed with
the knowledge of his condition of bondage, and he wants to get
rid of it; so he worships God. The thief is oppressed with the
idea that he does not possess certain things, and he tries to
get rid of that want, to obtain freedom from it; so he steals.
Freedom is the one goal of all nature, sentient or insentient;
and consciously or unconsciously, everything is struggling
towards that goal. The freedom which the saint seeks is very
different from that which the robber seeks; the freedom loved by
the saint leads him to the enjoyment of infinite, unspeakable
bliss, while that on which the robber has set his heart only
forges other bonds for his soul.
There is to be found in every religion the manifestation of this
struggle towards freedom. It is the groundwork of all morality,
of unselfishness, which means getting rid of the idea that men
are the same as their little body. When we see a man doing good
work, helping others, it means that he cannot be confined within
the limited circle of "me and mine". There is no limit to this
getting out of selfishness. All the great systems of ethics
preach absolute unselfishness as the goal. Supposing this
absolute unselfishness can be reached by a man, what becomes of
him? He is no more the little Mr. So-and-so; he has acquired
infinite expansion. The little personality which he had before
is now lost to him for ever; he has become infinite, and the
attainment of this infinite expansion is indeed the goal of all
religions and of all moral and philosophical teachings. The
personalist, when he hears this idea philosophically put, gets
frightened. At the same time, if he preaches morality, he after
all teaches the very same idea himself. He puts no limit to the
unselfishness of man. Suppose a man becomes perfectly unselfish
under the personalistic system, how are we to distinguish him
from the perfected ones in other system? He has become one with
the universe and to become that is the goal of all; only the
poor personalist has not the courage to follow out his own
reasoning to its right conclusion. Karma-Yoga is the attaining
through unselfish work of that freedom which is the goal of all
human nature. Every selfish action, therefore, retards our
reaching the goal, and every unselfish action takes us towards
the goal; that is why the only definition that can be given of
morality is this: That which is selfish is immoral, and that
which is unselfish is moral.
But, if you come to details, the matter will not be seen to be
quite so simple. For instance, environment often makes the
details different as I have already mentioned. The same action
under one set of circumstances may be unselfish, and under
another set quite selfish. So we can give only a general
definition, and leave the details to be worked out by taking
into consideration the differences in time, place, and
circumstances. In one country one kind of conduct is considered
moral, and in another the very same is immoral, because the
circumstances differ. The goal of all nature is freedom, and
freedom is to be attained only by perfect unselfishness; every
thought, word, or deed that is unselfish takes us towards the
goal, and, as such, is called moral. That definition, you will
find, holds good in every religion and every system of ethics.
In some systems of thought morality is derived from a Superior
Being - God. If you ask why a man ought to do this and not that,
their answer is: "Because such is the command of God." But
whatever be the source from which it is derived, their code of
ethics also has the same central idea - not to think of self but
to give up self. And yet some persons, in spite of this high
ethical idea, are frightened at the thought of having to give up
their little personalities. We may ask the man who clings to the
idea of little personalities to consider the case of a person
who has become perfectly unselfish, who has no thought for
himself, who does no deed for himself, who speaks no word for
himself, and then say where his "himself" is. That "himself" is
known to him only so long as he thinks, acts, or speaks for
himself. If he is only conscious of others, of the universe, and
of the all, where is his "himself"? It is gone for ever.
Karma-Yoga, therefore, is a system of ethics and religion
intended to attain freedom through unselfishness, and by good
works. The Karma-Yogi need not believe in any doctrine whatever.
He may not believe even in God, may not ask what his soul is,
nor think of any metaphysical speculation. He has got his own
special aim of realising selflessness; and he has to work it out
himself. Every moment of his life must be realisation, because
he has to solve by mere work, without the help of doctrine or
theory, the very same problem to which the Jnâni applies his
reason and inspiration and the Bhakta his love.
Now comes the next question: What is this work? What is this
doing good to the world? Can we do good to the world? In an
absolute sense, no; in a relative sense, yes. No permanent or
everlasting good can be done to the world; if it could be done,
the world would not be this world. We may satisfy the hunger of
a man for five minutes, but he will be hungry again. Every
pleasure with which we supply a man may be seen to be momentary.
No one can permanently cure this ever-recurring fever of
pleasure and pain. Can any permanent happiness be given to the
world? In the ocean we cannot raise a wave without causing a
hollow somewhere else. The sum total of the good things in the
world has been the same throughout in its relation to man's need
and greed. It cannot be increased or decreased. Take the history
of the human race as we know it today. Do we not find the same
miseries and the same happiness, the same pleasures and pains,
the same differences in position? Are not some rich, some poor,
some high, some low, some healthy, some unhealthy? All this was
just the same with the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans in
ancient times as it is with the Americans today. So far as
history is known, it has always been the same; yet at the same
time we find that, running along with all these incurable
differences of pleasure and pain, there has ever been the
struggle to alleviate them. Every period of history has given
birth to thousands of men and women who have worked hard to
smooth the passage of life for others. And how far have they
succeeded? We can only play at driving the ball from one place
to another. We take away pain from the physical plane, and it
goes to the mental one. It is like that picture in Dante's hell
where the misers were given a mass of gold to roll up a hill.
Every time they rolled it up a little, it again rolled down. All
our talks about the millennium are very nice as school-boys'
stories, but they are no better than that. All nations that
dream of the millennium also think that, of all peoples in the
world, they will have the best of it then for themselves. This
is the wonderfully unselfish idea of the millennium!
We cannot add happiness to this world; similarly, we cannot add
pain to it either. The sum total of the energies of pleasure and
pain displayed here on earth will be the same throughout. We
just push it from this side to the other side, and from that
side to this, but it will remain the same, because to remain so
is its very nature. This ebb and flow, this rising and falling,
is in the world's very nature; it would be as logical to hold
otherwise as to say that we may have life without death. This is
complete nonsense, because the very idea of life implies death
and the very idea of pleasure implies pain. The lamp is
constantly burning out, and that is its life. If you want to
have life, you have to die every moment for it. Life and death
are only different expressions of the same thing looked at from
different standpoints; they are the falling and the rising of
the same wave, and the two form one whole. One looks at the
"fall" side and becomes a pessimist another looks at the "rise"
side and becomes an optimist. When a boy is going to school and
his father and mother are taking care of him, everything seems
blessed to him; his wants are simple, he is a great optimist.
But the old man, with his varied experience, becomes calmer and
is sure to have his warmth considerably cooled down. So, old
nations, with signs of decay all around them, are apt to be less
hopeful than new nations. There is a proverb in India: "A
thousand years a city, and a thousand years a forest." This
change of city into forest and vice versa is going on
everywhere, and it makes people optimists or pessimists
according to the side they see of it.
The next idea we take up is the idea of equality. These
millennium ideas have been great motive powers to work. Many
religions preach this as an element in them - that God is coming
to rule the universe, and that then there will be no difference
at all in conditions. The people who preach this doctrine are
mere fanatics, and fanatics are indeed the sincerest of mankind.
Christianity was preached just on the basis of the fascination
of this fanaticism, and that is what made it so attractive to
the Greek and the Roman slaves. They believed that under the
millennial religion there would be no more slavery, that there
would be plenty to eat and drink; and, therefore, they flocked
round the Christian standard. Those who preached the idea first
were of course ignorant fanatics, but very sincere. In modern
times this millennial aspiration takes the form of equality - of
liberty, equality, and fraternity. This is also fanaticism. True
equality has never been and never can be on earth. How can we
all be equal here? This impossible kind of equality implies
total death. What makes this world what it is? Lost balance. In
the primal state, which is called chaos, there is perfect
balance. How do all the formative forces of the universe come
then? By struggling, competition, conflict. Suppose that all the
particles of matter were held in equilibrium, would there be
then any process of creation? We know from science that it is
impossible. Disturb a sheet of water, and there you find every
particle of the water trying to become calm again, one rushing
against the other; and in the same way all the phenomena which
we call the universe - all things therein - are struggling to
get back to the state of perfect balance. Again a disturbance
comes, and again we have combination and creation. Inequality is
the very basis of creation. At the same time the forces
struggling to obtain equality are as much a necessity of
creation as those which destroy it.
Absolute equality, that which means a perfect balance of all the
struggling forces in all the planes, can never be in this world.
Before you attain that state, the world will have become quite
unfit for any kind of life, and no one will be there. We find,
therefore, that all these ideas of the millennium and of
absolute equality are not only impossible but also that, if we
try to carry them out, they will lead us surely enough to the
day of destruction. What makes the difference between man and
man? It is largely the difference in the brain. Nowadays no one
but a lunatic will say that we are all born with the same brain
power. We come into the world with unequal endowments; we come
as greater men or as lesser men, and there is no getting away
from that pre-natally determined condition. The American Indians
were in this country for thousands of years, and a few handfuls
of your ancestors came to their land. What difference they have
caused in the appearance of the country! Why did not the Indians
make improvements and build cities, if all were equal? With your
ancestors a different sort of brain power came into the land,
different bundles of past impressions came, and they worked out
and manifested themselves. Absolute non-differentiation is
death. So long as this world lasts, differentiation there will
and must be, and the millennium of perfect equality will come
only when a cycle of creation comes to its end. Before that,
equality cannot be. Yet this idea of realising the millennium is
a great motive power. Just as inequality is necessary for
creation itself, so the struggle to limit it is also necessary.
If there were no struggle to become free and get back to God,
there would be no creation either. It is the difference between
these two forces that determines the nature of the motives of
men. There will always be these motives to work, some tending
towards bondage and others towards freedom.
This world's wheel within wheel is a terrible mechanism; if we
put our hands in it, as soon as we are caught we are gone. We
all think that when we have done a certain duty, we shall be at
rest; but before we have done a part of that duty, another is
already in waiting. We are all being dragged along by this
mighty, complex world-machine. There are only two ways out of
it; one is to give up all concerns with the machine, to let it
go and stand aside, to give up our desires. That is very easy to
say, but is almost impossible to do. I do not know whether in
twenty millions of men one can do that. The other way is to
plunge into the world and learn the secret of work, and that is
the way of Karma-Yoga. Do not fly away from the wheels of the
world-machine, but stand inside it and learn the secret of work.
Through proper work done inside, it is also possible to come
out. Through this machinery itself is the way out.
We have now seen what work is. It is a part of natures
foundation, and goes on always. Those that believe in God
understand this better, because they know that God is not such
an incapable being as will need our help. Although this universe
will go on always, our goal is freedom, our goal is
unselfishness; and according to Karma-Yoga, that goal is to be
reached through work. All ideas of making the world perfectly
happy may be good as motive powers for fanatics; but we must
know that fanaticism brings forth as much evil as good. The
Karma-Yogi asks why you require any motive to work other than
the inborn love of freedom. Be beyond the common worldly
motives. "To work you have the right, but not to the fruits
thereof." Man can train himself to know and to practice that,
says the Karma-Yogi. When the idea of doing good becomes a part
of his very being, then he will not seek for any motive outside.
Let us do good because it is good to do good; he who does good
work even in order to get to heaven binds himself down, says the
Karma-Yogi. Any work that is done with any the least selfish
motive, instead of making us free, forges one more chain for our
feet.
So the only way is to give up all the fruits of work, to be
unattached to them. Know that this world is not we, nor are we
this world; that we are really not the body; that we really do
not work. We are the Self, eternally at rest and at peace. Why
should we be bound by anything? It is very good to say that we
should be perfectly non-attached, but what is the way to do it?
Every good work we do without any ulterior motive, instead of
forging a new chain, will break one of the links in the existing
chains. Every good thought that we send to the world without
thinking of any return, will be stored up there and break one
link in the chain, and make us purer and purer, until we become
the purest of mortals. Yet all this may seem to be rather
quixotic and too philosophical, more theoretical than practical.
I have read many arguments against the Bhagavad-Gita, and many
have said that without motives you cannot work. They have never
seen unselfish work except under the influence of fanaticism,
and, therefore, they speak in that way.
Let me tell you in conclusion a few words about one man who
actually carried this teaching of Karma-Yoga into practice. That
man is Buddha. He is the one man who ever carried this into
perfect practice. All the prophets of the world, except Buddha,
had external motives to move them to unselfish action. The
prophets of the world, with this single exception, may be
divided into two sets, one set holding that they are
incarnations of God come down on earth, and the other holding
that they are only messengers from God; and both draw their
impetus for work from outside, expect reward from outside,
however highly spiritual may be the language they use. But
Buddha is the only prophet who said, "I do not care to know your
various theories about God. What is the use of discussing all
the subtle doctrines about the soul? Do good and be good. And
this will take you to freedom and to whatever truth there is."
He was, in the conduct of his life, absolutely without personal
motives; and what man worked more than he? Show me in history
one character who has soared so high above all. The whole human
race has produced but one such character, such high philosophy,
such wide sympathy. This great philosopher, preaching the
highest philosophy, yet had the deepest sympathy for the lowest
of animals, and never put forth any claims for himself. He is
the ideal Karma-Yogi, acting entirely without motive, and the
history of humanity shows him to have been the greatest man ever
born; beyond compare the greatest combination of heart and brain
that ever existed, the greatest soul-power that has even been
manifested. He is the first great reformer the world has seen.
He was the first who dared to say, "Believe not because some old
manuscripts are produced, believe not because it is your
national belief, because you have been made to believe it from
your childhood; but reason it all out, and after you have
analysed it, then, if you find that it will do good to one and
all, believe it, live up to it, and help others to live up to
it." He works best who works without any motive, neither for
money, nor for fame, nor for anything else; and when a man can
do that, he will be a Buddha, and out of him will come the power
to work in such a manner as will transform the world. This man
represents the very highest ideal of Karma-Yoga.