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Om Namo Bhagavate Ramakrishnaya! 
 
 (Our Salutation to Blessed Ramakrishua.) 
 
 I 
 
 Published/IJnder the Auspices 
 Of the Vedanta Society, 
 
 EIGHT LECTURES, 
 
 BY THE 
 
 5^t^l\\ YIYEKANANbA, 
 
 ON 
 
 KARMA YOGA 
 
 (The Secret of IVork,) 
 
 Delivered in New York, 
 
 WINTER 1895-6. 
 
 PUBLISHED AT $1.00 NET. 
 
 BRENTANO"S, 31 UNION SQUARE, W., NEW YORK. 
 
 Cop3^righted by 
 
 SWAMI VIVEKANANDA. 
 Nev.- York. 
 
 I 
 
 ifER S41896 
 

 .aO^ ^ 
 
KARMA YOGA 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 KARMA IN ITS EFFECT ON CHARACTER. 
 
 The word Karma is derived from the Sanskrit "Kri," to do; every- 
 thing that is done is Karma. Technically, this word also means the 
 effects of actions. In connection with metaphysics it sometimes' 
 means the effects of which our past actions were the causes. But 
 in Karmti Yoga we have simply to do with the word "Karma" as 
 nieaiiing work. The goal of all mankind is knowledge; that is the 
 one ideal placed before us by the Eastern philosophy. Pleasure is 
 not the goal of man, but knowledge. Pleasure and happiness come to 
 an end. It is the mistake of mankind to suppose that pleasure is the 
 goal; the cause of all the miseries we have in the world is that 
 men foolishly think pleasure to be the ideal. After a time man 
 finds that it is not happiness, but knowledge, towards which he is 
 going, and that both pleasure and pain are great teachers, that he 
 learns as well from good as from evil. As pleasure and pain pass 
 before his soul they leave upon it different pictures, and the 
 result of these combined impressions is what is called man's "char- 
 acter." If you take the character of any man it really is but the 
 tendencies, the sum total of the bent of his mind; you will find that 
 misery and happiness were equal factors in the formation of that 
 character; good and evil have an equal share in moulding char- 
 actei', and in some instances misery is a greater teacher than happi- 
 ness. Ill studying the great characters that the world has pro- 
 dviced I dare say that, in the vast majority of cases, it was misery 
 that tri light more than happiness; it was poverty that taught more 
 than wealth; it was blows that brought out the inner fire, more than 
 prais«\ 
 
 Now this knowledge, again, is inherent in a man; no knowledge 
 comes from outside; it is all inside. What we say a man "knows," 
 in strict psychological language, should be a man "discovers;" what a 
 
inan "learns" is really what a man "discovers," the word discover 
 meaning- "he takes the cover off of his own soul," which is a 
 mine of infinite knowledge. We .say Newton discovered gravita- 
 tion. Was it sitting anywhere in a corner waiting for him? 
 It was in his <own mind'; the time came and he found it out. 
 All knowledge that the world has ever received comes from the 
 mind; the infinite library of the universe is in your own mind. The 
 external world is simply the suggestion, the occasion, which sets 
 you to study your own mind, but the object of your study is always 
 your own mind. The falling of a stone gave the suggestion to New- 
 ton, and he studied his own mind; he rearranged all the previous 
 links of his mind and discovered a new link among them, whicli 
 we call the law of gravitation. It was not the stone or anything 
 in the centre of the earth. So, all knowledge, secular or spiritual, is 
 in the human mind. In many cases it is not discovered, but remains 
 covered, and when the covering is being slowly taken off we say "we 
 are learning," and the advance of knowledge is made by the advance 
 of tliis process of discovering. The man from whom this veil is 
 being lifted Is the more knowing man; the man upon whom it lies 
 thick is ignorant, and the man from whom it has entirely gone 
 is the all-knowing, the omniscient. There have been omniscient 
 men, and, I believe, will be jet, and that there will be myriads in the 
 cycles to come. Like fire in a piece of flint, knowledge is existing 
 in the mind; the suggestion is the friction that brings out that fire. 
 So with all our actions— our tears and our smiles, our joys and our 
 griefs, our weeping and our laughter, our curses and our blessings, 
 our praises and our blames— with every one of them we find, if 
 we calmly study our own selves, that they have been brought out 
 by so many blows. The result is what we are; all these blows taken 
 together are called "Karma," work. Every mental and physical 
 blo-^v that is given upon the soul to strike out the fire, to discover 
 its own power and knowledge, is Karma, Karma being used in its 
 universal sense; so we are doing Karma all the time. I am talking 
 to you; that is Karma. You are listening; that is Karma. We 
 breathe; that is Karma. We walk; Karma. We talk; Karma. 
 Everything we do, physical or mental, is Karma, and is leaving its 
 I marks on us. 
 
 There are certain works which are, as it were, the aggregate, the 
 sum total, of a. large number of small works. If we stand near the 
 seashore and hear the waves dashing against the shingle we think 
 it is such a great noise, and yet we know that one wave is really 
 coD'pcged of millions and millions of minute waves; each one of these 
 is making a noise, and yet we do not catch the sound of them; it is 
 only when they become the big aggregate that we catch it. So 
 
every pulsation of the lieart is mailing work; certain works we feel, 
 and tliey become tangible to us; tbey are, at the same time, the 
 aggregate of a number of small works. If you really want to judge 
 the character of a man look not at his great works. Every fool be- 
 comes a hero at one time or another. Watch a man do his most 
 common actions; those are the things which will tell you the real 
 character of a great man. Great occasions rouse even the lowest 
 of human beings to greatness, but he is a really great man wh^se 
 character is great always, the same wherever he be. 
 
 This Karma in its effect on character is the most tremendous 
 power that man has to deal with. As it were^ man is a centre, and 
 he is attracting all the powers of the universe towards himself, and in 
 this centre is fusing them all and ejecting them again in a big 
 current. That centre is the real man, the almighty, the omniscient, 
 and ho draws the whole universe towards him; good or bad, misery 
 or happiness, all running towards him, clinging round him, and out 
 of them he fashions the tremendous power called character and 
 throws it outwards. As he has the power of drawing in anything,. 
 so he has the power of throwing it out. 
 
 Now, all the actions that we see in the w^orld, all the movements 
 in human society, all the works that we have around us, are simply 
 the display of thought, the manifestation of the will of man. Ma- 
 chines or instruments, or cities, ships, men-of-war, everything is ^ 
 simply the manifestation of the will of man, and this will is made i 
 bj' character, and character is manufactured by Karma. As is \ 
 Karma, ,so is the manifestation of the will. The tremendous w^illed 
 men that the world has produced have all been tremendous workers — 
 huge, gigantic men, with wide wills, powerful enough to overturn 
 worlds; and they got that by persistent work, through ages and 
 ages. Such a gigantic will as that of a Buddha or a Jesus cannot be 
 got in one life, for we know who their fathers were. It is not known 
 that their fathers ever spoke a word for the good of mankind. 
 Millions and millions of carpenters like Joseph have gone; millions 
 are still living. Millions and millions of petty kings like Buddha's 
 father have been in the world. If it is only a case of hereditary 
 transmission, how^ do you account for this little petty prince, who 
 was not. perhaps, obeyed by his owm servants, producing this son, 
 whom half a world worships? How" do you account for this gap 
 botvv'een the carpenter and his son, whom millions of human beings^ 
 worship as God? It cannot be accounted for by that theory. This 
 gigantic will which Buddha threw over the world, which came out 
 of Jesus, whence did it come? Whence came this accumulation of 
 power? It must have been there through ages and ages, continually 
 
6 
 
 :growing' 'bigger and bigger, until it burst on society in a Buddlia or a 
 Jesus, and it rolls down even to tbe present day. 
 
 And all this is determined by Karma, work. No one can get any- 
 thing except he earns it; this is an eternal law; we may think it is not 
 so, but in the long run we will be convinced of it. A man may strug- 
 gle all his life in becoming rich; he may cheat thousands, but he 
 finds at last that he did not deserve it, and his life becomes a 
 trouble and a nuisance to him. We may go on accumulating for our 
 physical enjoyment, but only what we earn is ours. A fool msij buy all 
 the books in the world, but they will be in his library, and he will 
 only be able to read those he deserves, and this deserving is pro- 
 duced by Karma. Our Karma determines what we deserve and what 
 we can assimilate. We are responsible for what we are, and what- 
 ever we want ourselves to be we have the power to make ourselves. 
 If what we are now haSi been made by our own past actions it cer- 
 tainly follows that whatever we want to be we can make ourselves 
 by our present actions; so we have to know how to act. You will 
 say, "What is the use of learning how to work? Every one works 
 in this world." But there is such a thing as frittering away our 
 energies. With regard to this Karma Yoga, in the Gita it is said 
 that Karma Yoga is doing work, but with cleverness and as a 
 science; knowing how to do work that will bring the greatest results. 
 You must remember that all this work is simply to bring out the 
 power of the mind which is already there, to wake up the soul. 
 The power is inside every man, and the knowledge is there; these 
 different works are like blows to bring it out, to cause this giant to 
 wake up. 
 
 A man works for various motives; there cannot be work without 
 a motive. Some people want to get fame, and they work for fame. 
 Others want to get money, and they work for money. Others want 
 power, and they work for power. Others want to get to heaven, and 
 they v/ork to get to heaven.. Others want to leave a name when 
 they die, as they do in China, Avhere no man gets a title until he is 
 dead; thait is a better way, after all. When a man does very good 
 things they give a title of nobility to his father, who is dead, or to 
 his grandfather. Some of the Mohammedan sects work all their 
 lives to have a gigantic tomb when they die. I know sects among 
 whom, as soon as a child is born, they begin to prepare for his tomb; 
 that is the greatest work a man has to dQ, and the bigger and finer 
 the tomb the better off the man is supposed to be. Others work as a 
 penance; do all sorts of wicked things, then erect a temple, or give 
 something to the priests to buy them off and give them a passport 
 to heaven. They think that will clear them and that they will go 
 scot-free. These are some of the various motives for work. 
 
Work for work's sake. Ttiere are few who are really the salt of 
 the earth in every country and who work for work's sake, who do 
 not care for name, or fame, or to get to heaven. They work just be- 
 cause it is going to do good. There are others who do good to the 
 poor and help mankind from still higher motives, because it is good, 
 and they love good. Now, to return to this matter of motives, that 
 of name and fame. These seldom bring immediate result; they, as a 
 rule, come to us when we are old and are done with life. If a man 
 works without any selfish motive in view what becomes of him? 
 Does he not gain anything? Yes, he is the highest gainer. Unsel- 
 fishness is more paying, only people have not the patience to prac- 
 tise it. It is more paying in physical value also. Love, and truth, 
 and unselfishness are not only moral figures, but the highest ideal, 
 because they are such a manifestation of power. In the first place,. 
 a man who can work for five days, or for five minutes, without any) 
 selfish motive whatever, without thinking of the future, or heaven, , 
 or punishment, or anything of the kind, becomes a giant. It is hard 
 to do it, but in the heart of our hearts we know the value of it, and 
 what good it brings. It is the greatest manifestation of power and , 
 a tremendous restraint; to restrain is a manifestation of more I 
 power than all outgoing action. A carriage with four horses may \ 
 rush down a hill without restraint; or, the coachman may restrain 
 the horses. Which is the greater manifestation of power, to let 
 them go or to restrain them? A 'ball flying through the air goes a 
 long distance and then falls. Another is cut short in its flight by 
 striking against a wall, and intense heat is generated. So, all this 
 outgoing follows a selfish motive and goes away; it will not return \ 
 to you, but if it is restrained it will develop. Restraint will pro- ] 
 cluce a gigantic will, that character which makes a world move. \ 
 Foolish men do not know the secret; they want to rule mankind. The 
 fool does not know that he can rule the whole world if he waits. 
 Wait a few years, restrain that foolish idea of government, and 
 when that idea is wholly gone that man will restrain the universe. 
 But we are such fools! The majority of us cannot see beyond a few 
 years, just as animals cannot see beyond a few steps. Just a little 
 narrow circle; that is our world. We have not the patience to look 
 beyond and thus become immoral and wicked. It is our weakness, 
 our powerlessness. 
 
 But the lowest sorts of work are not to be despised. Let a 
 man who knows no better work for selfish ends, for name and 
 fame; but a man should always try to get towards the higher 
 motive and to understand what that motive is. "To work^ve have 
 the right, but not to the fruits thereof;" leave the fruits alone, leave 
 results alone. Who cares for results? When wanting to help a man. 
 
8 
 
 never think what that man's attitude should be towards you. Do> 
 not care to understand. If you want to do a great or a good work^ 
 do not trouble to think what the results will be. 
 
 There comies another difficult question with this sort of work. In- 
 tense activity is necessary; we must always work. We cannot live a 
 minute without work. What becomes of rest? Here is one side of 
 life-struggle work, to be whirled rapidly round in the current of 
 social life. And here is another picture — calm, retiring, everything 
 peaceful around you, very little of noise, only nature. Neither of them 
 iis a perfect picture. If a man goes to live in such a place as soon 
 as he is brought in contact with the surging whirlpool of the world 
 he will be crushed by it; just as the fish that lives in the deep sea 
 water, as soon as it comes to the surface, breaks into pieces; the 
 weight of water on it had kept it together. Can a man who has been 
 used to turmoil and the rush of life live if he comes into a quiet 
 place? The only place he goes to is the lunatic asylum. The ideal 
 1 man is he who in the midst of the greatest silence finds the intensest 
 activity and in the midst of the intensest activity finds the silence of 
 the desert. He has learned the secret of restraint; he has controlled 
 himself. He goes through the streets of a big city, with all their 
 traffic, and his mind is as calm *as if he were in a cave, where not a 
 sound could reach him, and he is intensely working all the time. 
 That is the ideal- of the Karma Yogi, and if you have attained to that 
 you have really learned the secret of work. 
 
 But we have to begin from the beginning, to take up the works as 
 they come to us and slowly make ourselves more unselfish every 
 day. We must do the work and find out the motive power that is 
 behind, prompting us to the work, and, almost without exception, in 
 the first years, we will find that the motives are always iselfish, but 
 gradually this selfishness will melt, by persistence, and at last 
 will come the time when we ishall be able to do really unselfish 
 work, now and then. Then, we all hope that some time or other, as 
 we roll down the path of life, will come a time when we will 
 become perfectly unselfish, and the moment we have become that 
 our powers will have been concentrated, and the knowledge which 
 is ours will become manifest. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 "EACH IS GREAT IN HIS OWN PLACE." 
 
 According to the Sankhya philosophy, nature is composed of three 
 materials, called, in Sanscrit, Sattva, Rajas and Tamas. Tamas is 
 typified as darkness or inactivity; Rajas as activity, where each 
 particle is trying to fly off from the attracting, centre, and Sattva is 
 the eqnili'brinm of the two, getting a control of both. Each man is 
 composed of these three materials; in each of us we find that some- 
 times the Tamas prevails; we become lazy; we cannot move; we are 
 inactive, bound down by certain ideas. At other times activity 
 will prevail, and at still other times that calm control of both will 
 prevail — ^the Sattva. Again, in different men, one of these materials 
 is generally predominant. The characteristic of one man is that of in- 
 activity, dullness and laziness; the characteristic of another man is 
 activity, power, manifestation of energy, and in still another man 
 we find the sweetness, calmness, gentleness, which are controlling 
 both. So in creation— in animals, plants and men— we find the tj^pifl- 
 cation of all these different materials. 
 
 Karma Yogi has specially to deal with these three elements. 
 By teaching us what they are and how to employ them it helps us to 
 do our work better. Human society is a graded organization. We all 
 know about morality, and we all know about duty, but at the same 
 time we find that in various count;ries morality differs greatly. What 
 is regarded as moral in one country in another may be perfectly im- 
 moral. Yet we have the idea that there must be a universal standard 
 of moralitj^ So it is with duty. The idea of duty varies much among 
 different nations. Two ways are left open to us— either the way of 
 the ignorant, who think that there is only one way to truth, and that 
 all the rest are wrong, or the way of the wise, who admit that, ac- 
 cording to the mental constitution or the different plane of ex- 
 istence in which we are, duty and morality may vary. The important 
 thing is to know that there are gradations of duty and of morality- - 
 that what is the duty of one state of life in one set of circumstances 
 will not be that of another. 
 
 The following example will serve to illustrate :— All great teachers 
 have taught "resist not evil"— that non-resisting evil is the highest 
 ideal. We all know that if a certain number of us attempted to 
 put that into practice the whole social fa'bric would fall to pieces, 
 society would be destroyed, the wicked would have posssession of 
 
10 
 
 our properties and our lives and would do whatever they liked with 
 us. Even if only one day of such non-resistance were practised it 
 would Tead to the utter dissolution of society. Yet, intuitively, in our 
 heart of hearts we feel the truth of the teaching, "resist not evil." 
 This seems to us to be the great ideal; yet to teach this doctrine 
 only would be equivalent to condemning a vast proportion of man- 
 Kind. Not only so, it would be making men feel that they were al- 
 ways doing wrong, cause scruples of conscience in all their actions; 
 it would weaken them, and that constant self-disapproval would 
 breed more vice than any other weakness. To the man who has 
 begun to hate himself the gate to degeneration has been opened, and 
 so with a nation. 
 
 Our first duty is not to hate ourselves; to advance we must have 
 faith in ourselves first and then in God. He who has no faith in him- 
 self can never have faith in God. Therefore, the only alterna- 
 tive remaining to us is to recognize that duty and morality vary under 
 different circumistances; not that the man who resists is doing some- 
 thing wrong, but that in the different circumstances in which he is 
 placed it may become his duty to resist. 
 
 In reading the Bhagavad Gita 'many of you in Western countries 
 may have felt astonished at the first chapter, w^hen Krishna calls 
 Arjuna a hypocrite and a coward because of his refusal to fight or 
 offer resistance on account of his adversaries being his friends and 
 relatives, on the plea that non-resistance was the highest ideal of 
 love. The great lesson to learn is that the two extremes are alike; 
 the extreme positive and the negative are always similar; when the 
 vibrations of light are too slow we do not see them, nor do we see 
 them when they are too rapid. So with sound; when very low we 
 do not hear, when very high we do not hear. In like manner is the 
 difference ^between resistance and non-resistance. One man does 
 not resist because he is weak, lazy, and cannot, and not because he 
 will not; the other is the man who, knowing that he can strike an ir- 
 resistible blow if he likes, not only does not strike, but blesses his 
 ■enemies. The one who resists not from weakness commits a sin, and 
 as such will not receive any benefit from his non-resistance, while 
 the other would commit a sin by offering resistance. Buddha gave 
 up his throne and renounced his position; that was true renunciation; 
 but there cannot be any question of renunciation in the case of a 
 beggar who has nothing to renounce. So we must always take care, 
 when we speak of this non-resistance and ideal love, what we really 
 mean. We must first take care to understand whether we have the 
 power of resistance or not. Then, having the power, if we renounce 
 and do not resist, we are doing a grand act, but if we cannot resist 
 and at the same time try 'to deceive ourselves that we are actuated 
 
11 
 
 by motives of the highesit love we are doing tlie exact opposite. 
 So Arjuna became a coward at the sight of the mighty array against 
 him; his "love" made him forget 'his duty towards his country and 
 king. That is why Krishna told him that he was a hypocrite :— "Thou 
 talkest like a wise man, 'but thy actions betray thee to be a coward; 
 therefore, stand up and fight!" 
 
 Such is the idea of the Karma Yogi. The Karm.a Yogi is the man 
 who understands that the highest ideal is non-resistance, but Avho 
 also knows that this is the highest manifestation of power, and that 
 what is called "resisting evil" is but a step on the way towards' the 
 manifestation of the highest power, which is non-resistance. Before 
 having attained the highest ideal his duty is to resist; let him work, 
 let him fight, let him strike 'Straight from the shoulder. Then only, 
 when he has gained the power to resist, will non-resistance be a 
 virtue. 
 
 Inactivity should be avoided by all means. Activity always means 
 resistance. Resist all evils, mental and physical, and when you have 
 succeeded in resisting, then will calmness come. It is very easy to 
 say, "hate not anybody, resist not any evil," but we know what that 
 means. When the eyes of society are turned towards us we may 
 make a tshow of non-resistance, but in our hearts it is canker all the 
 time. We feel the want of it; w^ feel that it would be better to resist. 
 If you desire wealth and you know that the whole world will tell you 
 that he who aims at wealth Is a very wicked man, you, perhaps, do 
 not dare to plunge into the struggle for wealth, yet at the same time 
 the mind is running day and night after money. This is hypocrisy 
 and will serve no purpose. Plunge into the world, and then, after a 
 time, wTien you have enjoyed all that is in it, will renunciation come; 
 then will calmness come. So fulfil your desire for power and every- 
 thing else, and after you have fulfilled the desire will come the time 
 when you will know that these are very little things; until you have 
 fulfilled this desire, until jou have passed through that activity, it is 
 impossible for you to come to that state of calmness and serenity. 
 These ideas of serenity have been preached for thousands of years; 
 everybody born has heard them from childhood, and yet we see very 
 few in the world that have really reached that stage. I do not know 
 if I have seen twenty persons in my life who were really calm and 
 non-resisting, and I have travelled over half the world. 
 
 Every man should take up his own ideal and endeavor to accom- 
 plish it; that is a surer way than taking up other men's ideals, which 
 he can never hope to accomplish. For instance, we take a baby and 
 at once give him the task of walking twenty miles; either the baby 
 dies or one in a thousand will crawl the twenty miles, to reach the 
 end exhausted and half dead. That is what we generally try to do 
 
12 
 
 with the world. All men and women, in any society, are not of the 
 same mind, capacity, or of the same power to understand a thing; 
 they must have different ideals, and we have no right to sneer at any 
 ideal. Let every one do the best he can for his own ideal. I should 
 noit be judged by yours or you by mine. The apple tree should not be 
 judged by the standard of the oak or the oak by that of the apple. To 
 judge the apple tree you must take the apple standard and for the 
 oak its own standard, and so with all of us. 
 
 Unity in variety is the plan of creation. However men and women 
 may vary individually, there is unity in the background. The differ- 
 ent individual characters and classes of men and women are natural 
 variations in the law of creation. Hence, we ought not to judge them 
 by the same standard or put the same ideal before them. Such a 
 course creates only an unnatural struggle, and the result is that 
 man begins to hate himself and is hindered from becoming religious 
 and good. Our duty is to encourage every one in his struggle to live 
 up to his own highest ideal and strive to make this ideal as near as 
 possible to the truth. 
 
 In the Hindu morality we find that this fact has been recognized 
 from very ancient times, and in their Scriptures and books on ethics 
 different rules are laid down for the different classes of men, for the 
 householder, the Sanyasi (the man who has renounced the world) 
 and the student. 
 
 The life of every individual, according to the Hindu Scriptures,, 
 has Its peculiar duties apart from what belongs to universal hu- 
 manity; to each stage of life certain duties are attached by its own 
 nature. No one of these stages of life is superior to the other; the 
 life of the married man is quite as great as that of the man who 
 is not married, but who has devoted himself to religious work. 
 The king on his throne is as great and glorious as the scavenger 
 in the street. Take him off his throne, make him do the work of the 
 scavenger and see how he fares. Take the scavenger and see how 
 he will rule. It is useless to say that the man who lives out of the 
 world is a greater man than he who lives in the world; it is much 
 more difficult to live in the world and worship Grod than to give it 
 up and live a free and easy life. The householder marries and 
 carries on his duties as a citizen, and the duties of the man who gives 
 up the world are to devote his energies only to religion. 
 
 If a man goes -out of the world to worship God he must not think 
 that those who live in the world and work for the good of the world 
 are not worshipping God; neither must those who live in the world, 
 for wife and children, think that those who give up the world are low 
 vagabonds. Each is great dn his own place. 
 
 This thought I will illustrate by a story. A certain king used ta 
 
13 
 
 inquire of all the Sanyasis that came to his country, "Which is 
 the greater man— he who gives up the world and becomes a Sanyasi, 
 or he who lives in the world and performs his duties as a house- 
 holder?" Many wise men sought to 'solve the problem. Some as- 
 serted that the Sanyasi was greater, upon which the king demanded 
 that they prove their assertion. When they could not he ordered 
 them to marry and become householders. Then others came and 
 .said, "The householder who performs his duties is the greater man." 
 Of them, too, the king demanded proofs. When they could not give 
 them he made them also settle down as householders. 
 
 At last there came a young Sanyasi, and the king inquired of 
 him. He answered, "Each, O king, is equally great in his place." 
 "Prove this to me," replied the king. "I will prove it to you," said 
 the Sanyasi, "but you must first come and live as I do for a few 
 days, that I may be able to prove to you what I say." The king 
 consented and followed the Sanyasi out of his own territory and 
 passed through many territories, until they came to another king- 
 dom. In the capital of that kingdom a great ceremony was going 
 on. The king and the Sanyasi heard the noise of drums, and music, 
 and criers; the people were assembled in the streets in gala array, 
 and a great proclamation was being made. The king and the Sanyasi 
 stood there to see what was going on. The crier was saying that the 
 princess, daughter of the king of that country, was about to choose a 
 husband from among those assembled before her. 
 
 It was an old custom in India for princesses to choose husbands 
 in this way, and each one had certain ideas of the sort of man 
 she wanted for a husband; some would have the handsomest man; 
 others would have only the most learned; others would have the 
 richest and so on. The princess, in the most splendid array, was 
 carried on a throne, and the announcement was made by criers that 
 the princess so-and-so was about to choose her husband. Then all 
 the princes of the neighborhood put on their bravest attire and pre- 
 sented themselves before her. Sometimes they, too, had criers to 
 enumerate their advantages and the reasons why they hoped the 
 princess would choose them. The princess was carried around and 
 looked at them and heard what they had to offer, and if she was 
 not pleased she said to her bearers, "Move on," and no more notice 
 was taken of the rejected suitors. If, however, the princess was 
 pleased with any one of them she threw a garland upon him, and he 
 became her husband. 
 
 The princess of the country to which the king and the Sanyasi 
 had come was having one of these ceremonies. She was the most 
 T^eautiful princess in the world, and the husband of the princess 
 •would be ruler of the kingdom after her father's death. Tlie idea of 
 
14 
 
 this princesis was to marry the handsomest man, but she could not 
 find the right one to please her. Several times these meetings had 
 taken place, and yet the princess had not selected any one. TMs. 
 meeting was the most splendid of all; more people than ever had 
 come to it, and it was a most gorgeous scene. The princess came in 
 on a throne, and the bearers carried her from place to place. She 
 does not care for any one, and every one becomes disappointed that 
 this meeting also is to be broken up without any one being chosen, 
 -Just then comes a young man, a Sanyasi, handsome as if the sun 
 had come down to the earth, and he stands in one corner of the 
 assembly, watching what is going on. The throne with the prin- 
 cess comes near him, and as soon as she sees the beautiful Sanyasi 
 she stops and throws the garland over him. The young Sanya,si 
 seizes the garland and throws it off, exclaiming, "What nonsense you 
 mean by that; I am a Sanyasi. What is marriage to me?" The king 
 of that country thinks that perhaps this man is poor, iSO does not 
 dare to marry the princess, so he said to him, "With my daughter 
 goes half my kingdom now and the whole kingdom after my death!" 
 and he puts the garland again on the Sanyasi. The young man threw 
 it off once more, saying, "What nonsense is this? I do not want to 
 marry," and walked quickly away from the assembly. 
 
 Now the princess had fallen so much in love with this young 
 man that she said, "I must marry this man or I shall die," and she 
 went after him to bring him back. Then the other Sanyasi, who had 
 brought the king there, said to the king, "King, let us follow this 
 pair," so they walked lafter them, but a good distance behind. The 
 young Sanyasi who had refused to marry the princess walked out 
 into the country for several miles, when he came to a forest and 
 struck into it, and the princess followed him, and the other two 
 followed them. Now the young Sanyasi was well acquainted with 
 that forest and knew all the intricate passages in it, and suddenly 
 he jumped into one of these and disappeared, and the princess could 
 not discover him. After trying for a long time to find him she sat 
 down under a tree and began to weep, for ishe did not know the way 
 to get out of the forest again. Then the king and the other Sanyasi 
 came up to her .and said, "Do not weep; we will show you the way 
 out of this forest, but it is too dark for us to find it now. Here is a 
 big tree; let us rest under it, and in the morning Ave will go early 
 and show you the road to get out." 
 
 Now a little bird and his wife and three little baby birds lived 
 on that tree, in a nest. This little bird looked down and saw the 
 three people under the tree and said to his wife, "My dear, wliat sliall 
 be done; here are some guests in tlie house, and it is winter, and' we 
 have no fire?" So he flew away and got a 'bit of burning firewood 
 
15 
 
 in his beak and dropped it before the guests, and they added fuel to 
 it and made a blazing fire. But the little bird was not satisfied. 
 He said again to his wife, "My dear, what shall we do; there is 
 nothing tjo give these people to eat, and they are hungry, and we are 
 householdei's; it our duty to feed any one who comes to the 
 house. I must do what I can. I will give them my body." So he 
 plunged down into the midst of the fire and perished. The guests 
 saw him falling and tried to save him, but he was too quick for 
 them and dashed into the fire and was killed. 
 
 The Ifttle bird's wife saw what her husband did, and she said, 
 "Here are three persons and only one little bird for them to eat. It 
 is not enough; it is my duty as a wife not to let my husband's effort 
 be in vain; let them have my body also," and she plunged down into 
 the fire and was burned to death. 
 
 Then the three baby birds, when they saw what was done, and 
 that there was still not enough food for the three guests, said, "Our 
 parents have done what they could and still it is not enough. It is our 
 duty to carry on the work of our parents; let our bodies go, too," and 
 they all dashed down into the fire also. 
 
 The three people could not eat these birds, and they were amazed 
 at what they saw. Somehow or other they passed the night without 
 food, and in the morning the king and the Sanyasi showed the prin- 
 cess the way, and she went back to her father. 
 
 Then the Sanyasi said to the king, "King, you have seen that 
 each is great In his own place. If you want to live in the world live 
 like those birds, ready at any moment to sacrifice yourself for others. 
 If you want to renounce the world be like that young man to whom 
 the most beautiful woman and a kingdom were as nothing. If you 
 want to be a householder hold j^our life a sacrifice for the welfare 
 of others, and if you choose the life of renunciation do not even see 
 beauty, and money, and power. Each is great in his own place, but 
 the duty of the one is not the duty of the other." 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE SECRET OF WORK. 
 
 Helping others physically, by relieving their physical needs, is 
 indeed great, but the help is greater, according as the need is 
 greater and according as the help is far reaching. If a man's wants 
 for an hour can be removed it is helping Mm indeed, but if his 
 wants can be removed for a year it will be more help to him, and 
 if 'his wants can be removed forever it is the greatest help that can 
 be given. Spiritual knowledge is the only thing that can remove 
 our miseries forever; any other knowledge satisfies wants only for a 
 time. If the nature of 'the man be changed, then alone all his wants 
 will vanish forever. It is only with the know^ledge of the spirit that 
 the faculty of want is annihilated forever, so helping man spiritually 
 is the highest help that can be given to him; he who gives man spirit- 
 ual knowledge is the greatest benefactor of mankind, and as such we 
 always find that they were the most powerful of men who have helped 
 man in his spiritual needs, because it is the basis of all other works 
 in life. A spiritually strong and sound man will be strong in every 
 •other respect, if he wishes, and until there is spiritual strength 
 in mankind even the physical needs cannot be satisfied. Next to 
 spiritual comes intellectual help; the gift of knowledge is a far higher 
 :gift than that of food and clothes; it is higher, even, than giving life 
 to a man, because the real life of man consists of knowledge; ignor- 
 ance is death, and knowledge is life. Life is of very little value if it is 
 a life in the dark, groping through ignorance and misery. Next in 
 order comes, of course, helping a man physically. So, in considering 
 the 'helping of others, we must always bear in mind not to commit the 
 mistake of thinking that phj-sical help is the only help that 
 can be given; physical help is the' last and the least, be- 
 cause there is no permanent satiation. The misery that I feel 
 when I am hungry is satisfied by eating, but hunger returns again; 
 misery can only cease when I am satisfied beyond all want. Then 
 hunger will not make me miserable; no distress, no misery, no sorrow 
 will be able to move me. So that help which tends to make us strong 
 ■spiritually is the highest help; next to it comes intellectual help and 
 after that physical help. 
 
 The miseries of the world cannot be cured by simply physical 
 help; until man'is nature changes these physical needs will always 
 arise, and miseries will be always felt, and no amouu't of physical 
 
belp given to the world will cure that misery. The only solution of 
 the problem of all this misery dn the world is to make mankind pure. 
 Ignorance is the mother of all the evil and all the misery we see. 
 Let men have light, let them be spiritually strong, and if we can ac- 
 complish this, if all mankind becomes pure and spiritually strong 
 and educated, then alone will misery cease in the world and not be- 
 fore then. We may convert every house in the country into a charity 
 asylum; we may fill the lands with hospitals, but the misery will still 
 exist until man's character changes. 
 
 We read in the Gita again and again that we must all work in- 
 cessantly, but all work must be composed of good and evil; we can- 
 not do any work which has not isome part of good somewhere; there 
 cannot be any work which will not injure some one somewhere. 
 Every work must necessarily be a mixture of good and evil; yet we 
 are told to work incessantly; the good and evil will both have their 
 results, make their Karma; the good action will entail upon us good 
 effect; the bad action bad effect, but good and bad are both bondages 
 of the soul. The solution reached in the Gita is that if we do not 
 attach ourselves to the work it will not take any effect on us. We 
 will try to understand what is meant by this "non-attachment" to 
 work. 
 
 It is( the one central idea in the Gita; work incessantly, but be not 
 attached to it. "Samskara" can be translated very nearly by the 
 word tendency. Using the simile of a lake for the imind, every 
 ripple, every wave that rises in the mind when it subsides does not 
 die out entirely, but leaves a mark and a future possiibility of that 
 wave coming out again. This mark, with the possibility of the 
 wave reappearing, is what is called Samskara. Each work that we 
 do, each movement of the body, each thought In the mind, is leaving 
 such an impression on the mind stuff, and even when they are not ob- 
 vious on the surface these marks are 'SuflSoiently strong to work be- 
 neath the surface, sub-consciously. What we are each 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 these 
 marks, of my past life. This is really what is meant by character; 
 each man's character is determined by the isum total of these impres- 
 sions. If good impressions prevail, that character becomes good; if 
 bad, that character becomes bad. If a man continuously hears bad 
 words, thinks bad thoughts, does bad actions, his mind will be full 
 of these impressions, or marks, and they, unconsciously, will govern 
 the tendency of his work. In fact, these impressions are always 
 working, and the expression will be evil; that man will be a bad man; 
 he cannot help it; the sum total of these impressions will create the 
 strong motive power for doing bad actions; he will be a machine in 
 
18 
 
 the laands of his impressions, and they will force him to do evlL 
 Similarly, if a man thinks good thoughts and does good works the 
 sum total of these impressions will be good, and they, in a similar 
 manner, will force him to do good in spite of himself. When a man 
 hajs done so much good work land thought so many good thoughts 
 that there is an irresistible tendency in his nature to do good in spite 
 of himself, then, even if he thinks he will do evil, the mind, in the 
 sum total of its tendencies, will not allow him to do so; the tendencies 
 will turn him back; he is at the mercy of his good tendencies. When 
 that is the case that man's character is said to be established^. 
 
 As the tortoise tucks his feet and head inside of his shell, and you 
 may kill him and break him in pieces, yet they will not come out, 
 even so the character of that man who has control over his centres 
 and organs is established: By this 'Oontinuous reflex of goiod 
 thoughts, good impressions moving over the surface of the mind, the 
 tendency becomes strong for good, and the result is that we control 
 the "indriyas" (the sensory and motor organs). Then alone will the 
 character be established; then alone you get to truth; that man is 
 safe forever; he cannot do any evil; you may throw him anywhere; 
 you may put him in any company; there will be no danger for him. 
 There is a still higher stage than having this good tendency, the de- 
 sire for liberation. You must remember that freedom of the soul 
 is the goal of all these Yogas, and each one equally leads to the 
 same result. Just by work men can get where Buddha got by 
 meditation or Christ by prayer. Buddha was a Gnani; Christ was a 
 Bhakta, but the same goal was reached. The difficulty is here. Lib- 
 eration means entire freedom— freedom from the bondages of good, 
 as well as from the bondages of evil. A golden chain is as much 
 a chain as an iron chain. There is a thorn in my finger, and I use 
 another thorn to take the first thorn out, and when I have taken 
 it out I throw both thorns 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 tendencies, and 
 the 'bad marks of the mind should be conquered by fresh waves of 
 good marks, until those that are evil almost disappear or are subdued 
 or held in control in one corner of the mind; ibut after that, the good 
 tendencies have also to be conquered; the "attached" becomes "un- 
 attached." Work, TDut let not the action or the thought produce a 
 deep impression on the mind; let the ripple come; let huge actions 
 proceed from the muscles and the 'brain, but let them not make any 
 deep impression on the soul. How can that be done? We see that 
 the impression of any action to which we join ourselves remains. 
 
 I may meet hundreds of persons during the day, but I meet one I 
 love, and when I retire at night I may try to think of all the faces. 
 
19 
 
 but that face comes which I met only for one minute, and which I 
 loved, and all the others have vanished. My attachment to this 
 particular person caused a deeper impression on my mind than all 
 the other faces. Physiologically, the impressions have all been the 
 same; every one of these faces that I saw pictured itself on the 
 retina, and the brain took the picture In, and yet there was no 
 similar effect upon the mind. But in the case of that man, of whom 
 I caught, perhaps, only a glimpse, a deeper impression was made, 
 because the other faces found no association in my mind; most of 
 them, perhaps, were entirely new, faces about which I never thought 
 before, but that one face, of which I got only a glimpse, found associa- 
 tions inside. Perhaps I had pictured him for years, knew hundreds 
 of things about him, and this one new thing found hundreds of 
 kindred things inside my mind, and all these associations were 
 aroused; the impression on my mental vision was a hundred times 
 more than the seeing of all those different faces together, and, such 
 being the case, a tremendous impression will be immediately made 
 upon the mind. 
 
 Therefore, be "unattached;" let things work; let brain centres- 
 work, work incessantly, but let not a ripple conquer the mind. Work 
 as if you were a stranger in this land, a sojourner; work incessantly,, 
 but do not bind yourselves; bondage is terrible. This world is not 
 our habitation, only one of the many stages through which we are 
 passing. Remember that great saying of Sankhya, "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 will free itself. If we remember this always 
 we shall never be attached to nature; we will know that nature is a 
 book in which we are to read, and when we have gained that knowl- 
 edge 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, just as the common saying is that one man "lives 
 to eat" and another "eats to live;" we are continually making this 
 mistake; we are regarding nature as ourselves and are becoming at- 
 tached to it, and as soon as this attachment comes there is this 
 deep impression on the soul, which binds us down and makes us work 
 like slaves. 
 
 The whole gist of this teaching is that you should work like a 
 master and not as a slave; work incessantly, but not slave's work. 
 Do you not see how everybody works? Nobody can rest; ninety-nine 
 per cent of mankind work as slaves, and the result is misery; it is 
 selfish work. Work through freedom! Work through love! The 
 word love is very difficult to understand; It never comes until there 
 
20 
 
 is freedom. There is no love in the slave. If you buy a slave and 
 tie him down in chains and make him work for you he will work like 
 a drudge, but there will be no love. So when we ourselves work for 
 the world as slaves, there is no love, and it is not true work. The 
 same applies to our work for our relatives and friends, even for our 
 own iselves. Suppose a man loves a woman; he wlsihes to have 
 her all to himself and feels extremely jealous about her every mo- 
 ment; he wants her to sit near him, to stand near him and eat and 
 move at his bidding. He is a slave to her. That is not love; it is a 
 sort of morbid affection 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 pain. With love there is no painful reaction; love 
 only brings a reaction of 'bliss; if it does not it is not love; we 
 are mistaking something else for love. When you have succeeded 
 in loving your husband, your wife, your children, the whole world, 
 the universe, in such a manner that there is no reaction of pain, or 
 jealousy, no selfish feeling, then you a^e in a fit state to be unat- 
 tached. 
 
 Krishna says, "Look at me, Arjuna! If I stop fromi work for 
 one moment the whole universe will die. Yet I have nothing to 
 gain from the universe; I am one Lord; I have nothing to gain 
 from the universe; but why do I work? because I love the world." 
 God is unattached because He loves; that real love makes us un- 
 attached. Wh;.erever /there is thi(s attaichment, this tremendous 
 clinging, you must know it is physical, a sort of physical attraction 
 between particles of matter and other particles of matter, some- 
 thing that attracts two bodies nearer and nearer all the time, and 
 if they cannot get near it becomes painful; but where there is real 
 love it does not count on physical attachment at all. That body 
 may Tbe a thousand miles distant, love is all the same; it does not 
 die; there will never be a reaction. 
 
 To attain this unattachment is almost a life work, but as soon 
 as we have got to this point we have attained the goal and be- 
 come free; the bondage of nature falls from us, and we see nature 
 as it is; nature forges no more chains for us; we stand entirely free 
 and take not the results of work into consideration; who cares what 
 the results be, either good or bad? The man who works through 
 freedom does not care for the results. 
 
 Do you ask anything from your children in return for what you 
 have given them? It is your duty to work for them, and there it 
 stops. Whatever you do for a particular person, a city, or a State, 
 do it, 'but assume the same attitude as you have towards 
 your children— expect nothing. If you can incessantly take that 
 position that you are a giver, that everything given by you is a 
 
21 
 
 free offering to the world, without any thought of return, that will 
 be work which will not bring attachment. Attachment only comes 
 where w^e expect something. 
 
 This idea of complete self-sacrifice is illustrated in the following 
 story: — After the battle of Kurukshetra the five Panda brothers 
 held a great sacrifice and made very large gifts -to the poor. All 
 the people expressed amazemen't 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 Mttle mongoose; 
 half his body was golden, and the other half was brown, and he 
 began to roll himself on the floor of the sacrificial hall. Then he 
 said to those around, "You are all liars; this is no sacrifice." "What!" 
 they exclaimed, "you say this is no sacrifice; do you not know 
 how money and jewels Avere poured out upon the poor and every 
 one became rich and happj^? This was the most wonderful sacrifice 
 any man ever made." But the mongoose said, "There w^as once a 
 little village, and in it there dwelt a poor Brahmin, with his wife, 
 his son and his son's wife. They were very poor and lived on alms 
 gained in preaching and teaching, for which men made little gifts 
 to them. 
 
 "There came in that land a three years' famdne, and the poor 
 Brahmin suffered more than ever. At last for five days the family 
 starved, but on the fifth day the father brought home a little barley 
 flour, which he had been fortunate enough to find, and he divided 
 it into four parts, one for each of them. They prepared it for 
 their meal, and just as they were about to eat it a knock came at the 
 door. The father opened it, and there stood a guest. Now in India 
 a guest is sacred; he is as a god for the time being, and must be 
 treated as such. So the poor Brahmin said, 'Come in, sir; you are 
 welcome.' He set before the guest his own portion of food, and 
 the latter quickly ate it up and then said, 'Oh, sir, you have 
 killed me; 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 huslband said, 'Not so.' The wife, how- 
 ever, insisted, saying, 'Here is a poor man, and it is our dutj^ as 
 householders to see that he is fed, and it is my duty as a wife to give 
 him mj portion, seeing that you have no more to offer him.' Then 
 she gave her share to the guest, and he ate it up and said he was 
 still burning with hunger. So the son said, 'Take my portion also; 
 it is the duty of a son to help his father 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 grains 
 
22 
 
 of that flour had fallen on the floor, and when I rolled my body on 
 them half of it became golden, as you see it. Since then I have 
 been all over the world, hoping to find another sacrifice like that, but 
 never 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." 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 WHAT IS DUTY? 
 
 It is necessary to know what work is, and with that comes, nat- 
 urally, the question, What is duty? If I have to do something I must 
 first know my duty and that I can: do it. The idea of duty, again, is 
 so different in different nations. The Mohammedan saj^s what is 
 written in his book, the Qur'an, is his duty; the Hindu says what is 
 in his book, the Vedas, is his duty, and the Christian says what 
 is in his Bible is his duty. So we find that there must be varied ideas 
 of duty, differing according to different states in life, different periods 
 and different nations. The term "duty," like every other universal 
 abstract term, is impossible to define; we can only get an idea of it by 
 describing the surroundings and by knowing its actions and its re- 
 sults. To make an objective definition of duty would be entirely im- 
 possible; there is no such thing as objective duty. Yet there is duty 
 from the subjective si&e; any action that makes us go godward is a 
 good action, and is our duty; any action that makesi us go downward 
 is an evil action. There is only one idea which is universal for all 
 mankind, of any age or sect and country, and that has been summed 
 up in the Sanskrit aphorism: — "Do not injure any being; non-injuring 
 any being is virtue; injuring any being is vice. 
 
 One point we ought to remember is that we should always try to 
 see the dutj-^ of others through their own eyes, and never want to 
 judge the customs of other races or other peopled by our own stand- 
 ard. "I am not the standard of the universe." This is the great les- 
 son to learn. "Ii have to accommodate myself to the Avorld, and not 
 the world to me." Therefore we see that environments will change 
 our duties, and doing in the best way that duty which is ours at a 
 certain time is the best thing ^^e can do in this world. Let us do that 
 duty which is ours by birth, and when we have done that do the duty 
 which is ours by our position. Bach man is placed in some position 
 in life, and must do the duties of that position first. There is one 
 great danger in human nature, that man never looks at himself. He 
 thinks he is quite as fit to be on the throne as- the king. Even if he 
 is, he must first show that he has done the duty of his own position, 
 and when he has done that, higher duty will come to him. 
 
• 24 
 
 Later on we will find tlaat even the idea of duty will have to be 
 changed, and that the greatest work is only done when there is the 
 least motive urging us from behind. Yet it is work through duty that 
 leads us to work without any idea of duty; when work will become 
 worship— nay, higher, work will stand alone for its own sake. But 
 that is the ideal, and the way lies through duty. We shall find the 
 philosophy behind all duties, either in the form of ethics or love, is- 
 the same as that in every other Yoga— attenuating the lower self, so 
 that the real self may shine; to circumscribe the frittering away of 
 energies on the lower planes of existence, so that the soul may mani- 
 fest itself on the higtier planes. This is accomplished by the continu- 
 ous denial of low desires, which duty rigorously requires. The whole 
 organization of society has thus been developed, consciously or un- 
 consciously, as the land of actions, the field of experience, where, by 
 limiting the desires of selfishness, we open the w^ay to an unlimited 
 expansion of the real nature of man. 
 
 And duty is seldom sweet.. It is only when love greases its wheels; 
 that it runs smoothly; else it is a continuous friction. What parents 
 can do their duties to their children ? What children to their parents? 
 What husband to his wife? What wife to her husband? Do we not 
 meet with cases of friction every day in our lives? Duty is sweet 
 only through love, love shines alone in freedom; yet is it freedom to 
 be a slave to the senses, to anger, to jealousies and a hundred other 
 petty things that must occur every day in human life? In all these 
 little roughnesses that we meet with in life the highest expression of 
 freedom is to forbear. Women, slaves- to their' own irritable, jealous 
 tempers, are apt to attribute the blame to their husbands, and assert 
 their freedom, as they think, not knowing that they are only proving 
 that they are slaves. So with husbands who are eternally finding 
 fault with their wives. 
 
 Chastity is the first virtue in man or woman, and the man who, 
 however he may have strayed away, cannot be brought to the right 
 path by a gentle and loving and chaste wife, is indeed very rare. 
 This world is not yet as bad as that. I have heard much about brutal 
 husbands all over the world and the impurity of men, but my experi- 
 ence shows that there are quite as many brutal and impure women 
 as men. 
 
 If the women of America were as good and pure as their own con- 
 stant assertions would lead a foreigner to believe, I am perfectly sat- 
 isfied that there would not be one impure man in this country. With 
 w^hom could men become impure? What brutality is there which 
 purity and chastity cannot conquer? A good, chaste wife, who thinks 
 of every other man except her own husband as her child and has the 
 
25 
 
 attitude of a motlier toward all men, would have g^rown so great in 
 the power of puritj^ that there would not be a single man, however 
 brutal, who would not feel an atmosphere of holiness in her presence. 
 Similarly eveiy husband must look upon all women, except his own 
 wife, in the light of his own mother or daughter or sister. That man, 
 again, Avho wants to be a teacher of religion must look upon every 
 woman as his mother, and always behave toward her as such. 
 
 The position of the mother is the highest in the world, as it is th& 
 one place in which to learn and exercise the greatest unselfishness. 
 The love of God is the only love that is higher than mother's love; 
 all others are lower. It is the duty of the mother to think of her chil- 
 dren first and then of herself. But, instead of that, if the parents are 
 always thinking of themselves first, even in such small things as 
 food, taking the best portions to themselves and letting the children 
 take what they can, the result is always that the relation between 
 parents and children becomes as the relation between the birds and 
 their offspring, who, as soon as they are fledged, do not recognize any 
 parents. Blessed, indeed, is the man whO' is able to look upon woman 
 as the representative of the motherhood of God. Blessed, indeed, is 
 the woman to whom man represents the fatherhood of God. Blessed 
 are the children who look upon their parents as divinity manifested 
 on earth. 
 
 The only way to rise is by doing the duty that is in our hands 
 now, and making ourselves stronger and going higher, until we reach 
 the highest state. Nor is duty to be slighted. A man who does the 
 lower work is not, therefore, a lower man than he Avho does the 
 higher work; a man should not be judged by the nature of his duties, 
 but by the manner in which he does them. His manner of doing them 
 and power to do^ them is the test of a man. A shoemaker who can 
 turn out a strong, nicev pair of shoes in the shortest time is a better 
 man, according to his works, than a professor who talks nonsense 
 every day of his life. 
 
 A certain young Sanyasi went to a forest and there meditated 
 and worshipped and practised Yoga for a long time. After twelve 
 years of hard work and practice, he was one day sitting under a tree, 
 w^hen some dry leaves fell upon his head. He" looked up and saw a 
 crow and a crane fighting on the top of the tree, and they made him 
 very angry. He said:— "What! You dare throw those dry leaves 
 upon my head!" and as he looked upon them with anger a flash of 
 fire burst from his head— the Yogi's power— and burnt the birds to 
 ashes. He was very glad; he was almost overjoyed at this develop- 
 ment of power; he could burn, at a. glance, the crow^ and the crane. 
 After a time he had tO' go into the town to beg his bread. He came 
 and stood at a door and said:— "Mother, give me food." A voice came 
 
26 
 
 from inside the house:— "Wait a little, my son." The young man 
 thought:— "You wretched woman, dare you make me wait! You do 
 not know my power yet." While he was thinking this the voice came 
 again:— "Boy, don't be thinking too much of yourself. Here is neither 
 crow nor crane." He was astonished; still he had to wait. At last 
 a woman came, and he fell at her feet and said:— "Mother, how did 
 you know that?" She said:— "My boy, I do not know your Yoga or 
 your practices. I am a common, everyday woman, but I made you 
 wait because my husband is ill, and I was nursing him, and that was 
 my duty. All my life I have struggled to do my duty. As a daughter, 
 when I was unmarried, I did my duty, and now, when I am married, 
 I ®till do my duty; that Is all the Yoga I pi^actice, and by doing my 
 duty I have become illumined; thus, I could read your thoughts and 
 Avhat you had done in the forest. But if you want to know something 
 higher than this go to such and such a town and to the market, and 
 there you w'ill find a butcher, and he will tell you something that you 
 will be very glad to learn." The Sanyasi thought:— "Why go to that 
 town and to a butcher." (Butchers are the lowest class in our coun- 
 try; they are called Chandalas; they are not touched because they are 
 butchers; they do the duty of scavengers, and so forth.) 
 
 But after what he had seen his mdnd was opened a little, so he 
 went, and when he came near the city he found the market, and there 
 saw, at a distance, a big, fat butcher slashing away at animals, with 
 big knives, fighting and bargaining with different people. The young 
 man said, "Lord, help me, is this the man from whom I am going to 
 learn? He is the incarnation of a demon, if he is anything." In the 
 meantime this man looked up and said, "Swami, did that lady send 
 you here? Take a seat until I have done my business." The Sanyasi 
 thought, "What comes to me here?" but he took a seat and the man 
 went on, and after he had finished all his selling and buying, took his 
 money and said to the Sanysai, "Come here, sir; come to my home." 
 
 'So they went there and the butcher gave him a seat and isaid, 
 "Wait there. Then he went into the. house and there were his father 
 and mother. He waished them and fed them and did all he could to 
 please them, and then came and took a seat before the Sanyasi and 
 said, "Now, sir, you are come here to see me; what can I do for you?" 
 Then this great Sanysai asked him a few questions about the soul and 
 God, and this butcher gave him a lecture which is a very celebrated 
 book in India, the "Vyada Gita." It is one of the highest flights in 
 the Vedanta, the highest flight of metaphysics. You have heard of 
 the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna's sermon. When you have finished that 
 you should read the "Vyada Gita," it is the extreme of Vedanta phil- 
 osophy. When the butcher had finished the Sanysai was astonished. 
 He said, "Why are you in that body, with such knowledge as yours? 
 
Why are you in a butcher's body, and doing such filthy, ugly work?" 
 "My son," replied the Chandala, "no duty is ugly, and no duty is im- 
 pure. My birth, circumstances and environments were there. In my 
 boyhood I learned the trade; I am unattached, and I try to do my duty 
 well. I try to do my duty as a householder, and I try to do all I can to 
 make my father and mother happy. I neither know your Yoga, nor 
 became a Snyasi; never went out of the world, nor into a forest, but 
 all this has come to me through doing my duty in my position." 
 
 There is a sage in India, a great Yogi, one of the most wonderful 
 men I have seen in my life. He is a peculiar man; he will not teach 
 any one; if you ask him a question he will not answer. It is too much 
 for him to take the position of a teacher; he will not take it. If you 
 ask a question, and if you wait for some days, in the course of conver- 
 sation, he will bring the subject out himself, and wonderful light 
 he will throw on it. He told me once the secret of work, and what he 
 said was, 'Let the end and the means be joined into one, and that is 
 the secret of work.' When you are doing work, do not think of any- 
 thing beyond. Do it as worship, andl the highest worship, and devote 
 your whole life to it for the time being. Thus, in this story, the 
 butcher and the woman did their dutj^ with cheerfulness, and whole- 
 heartedness, and willingness, and the result was that they became 
 illuminated, clearly showing that the right performance of the duties 
 of any station, and being unattached, lead to the highest. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 WB HELP OURSELVES, NOT THE WORLD. 
 
 Our duty to otliers 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 power in us; but, when we analyze 
 it properly, we shall find that this world does not requite our help. 
 This world was not made that you or I should come and help it. I 
 once read a sermon in which was said:— "All this beautiful world is 
 very good because it gives us time and opportunity to help others."" 
 Apparently, it was a very beautiful sentiment, but, in one sense, it was 
 a curse, for is it not a blasphemy to say that the world needs our 
 help? We cannot deny that there is much misery in it; to go out and 
 help others is, therefore, the highest motive power we have, although,, 
 in the long run, we shall find that it is only helping ourselves. As a 
 boy I had some white mice. They were kept in a little box and had 
 little wheels made for them, and when' the mice tried to cross the 
 wheels, the wheels turn and turn, and the mice never got anywhere. 
 So with the world and our helping it. The only help is, that you get 
 exercise. This world is neither good nor evil; each man manufactures 
 a world fonhimself. If a blind man begins to think of it, it is either 
 as soft or hard, or cold or hot. We are a mass^ of happiness or misery; 
 w^e have seen that hundreds of times in our lives. As a rule, the 
 young are optimistic and the old pessimistic. The young have all life 
 before them, and the old are complaining; their day is gone; hundreds 
 of desires, which they cannot fulfill, are struggling in their brain. 
 Life is at an end for them. Both are foolish. This life is neither good 
 nor evil. It is according to* the different states of mind in which we 
 look at the w^orld. The most practical man w^ould neither call it good 
 nor evil. Fire, by itself, is neither good nor evil. When it keeps us 
 warm we say: — "How beautiful is fire!" When it burns our fingers 
 we blame the fire. Still, it was neither good nor bad. As w^e use it, 
 it produces that feeling of good or bad, and so is this world. It is 
 perfect. By perfection is meant that it is perfectly fitted to meet its 
 
29 
 
 «nds. We can all be perfectly sure that it will go on, and need not 
 bother our heads wanting to help it. 
 
 Yet we must do good; it is the highest motive power we have, 
 knowing all the time it is a privilege to help. Do not stand on a ped- 
 estal and take five cents and say, "Here, my poor man," but be grate- 
 ful that the poor man is there, so that by giving to him you are able 
 to help yourself. It is not the receiver that is blessed, but the giver. 
 Be thankful that you are allowed to exercise your power of benev- 
 olence and mercy in the world, and thus become pure and per- 
 fect. All good acts tend to make us pure and perfect. 
 What can we do at best? Build a hospital, make roads, or erect 
 charity asylums ! We may organize a charity and collect two or three 
 millions of dollars, build a hospital with one million, with the second 
 give balls and drink champagne, and of the third let the officers steal 
 half, and the rest may finally reach the poor, but what are these? 
 One mighty wind, in five minutes, can break it all up. What shall we 
 do then? One volcanic eruption can sweep away all our roads, and 
 hospitals, and cities and buildings. Let us give up all this foolish 
 talk of doing good to the world. It is not waiting for your or my 
 help, yet we must work and constantly do good, because it is a blessing 
 to ourselves. That is the only way we can become perfect. No 
 beggar ever owed a single cent to us, we owe eveiything to him, be- 
 cause he has allowed us to exercise our powers of pitj' and charity on 
 him. It is entirely wrong to think that we have done, or can do good 
 to the world, or have helped such and such people. It is a foolish 
 thought, and all foolish thoughts bring misery. We think we have 
 helped some one and expect him to thank us, and, because he does not, 
 unhappiness comes to us. Why expect anything? If we were really 
 unattached, we should escape all this pain of vain expectation, and 
 could do good work in the world. Never will unhappiness or misery 
 come through work done without attachment. This world will go on 
 with its happiness and misery through eternity. 
 
 There was a poor man who wanted some money, and, somehow, 
 he had heard that if he could get hold of a ghost or some spirit, he 
 could command him to bring money or anything he liked; so he was 
 very anxious to get hold of a ghost. He went about searching for a 
 man who would give him a ghost, and at last he found a sage, with 
 gi-eat powers, and besought this sage to help him. The sage asked him 
 what he would do with a ghost. "I want a ghost to work for me; 
 teach me how to get hold of one, sir, I desire it very much," replied 
 the man. But the sage said, "Don't disturl;* 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 
 
30 
 
 word, and a gJiost will come, and whatever you say to this ^host he 
 will do. But beware; they are terrible beings, and must be kept con- 
 tinually busy. If you fail to give him work he will take your life." 
 The man replied:— "That's 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, with big teeth, and said:— "I am 
 a ghost. I have been conquered by your magic. But you must keep 
 me constantly employed. The moment you stop 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 said:— "I can give him nothing more 
 to do; he does 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 was the matter, 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; 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 care- 
 fully straightened it out, but as soon as he let go, it instantly curled 
 up again. Once more he laboriously straightened it out, only to find it 
 again curled up as soon as he attempted to let go of it. Again he 
 patiently straightened it out, but as soon as he let it go, it curled up 
 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 
 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 that dog's curly tail, and people have been striving to 
 straighten it out for hundreds of years, but when they let go, it curls 
 up again. How can it be otherwise? One must first know how to work 
 without attachment, then he will not be a fanatic. When we know 
 that this world is like a dog's curly tail and will never straighten, 
 we shall not become fanatics. They can never do real Avork. If there 
 were no fanaticism in the world it would make much more progress 
 
31 
 
 than it does now. It is all silly nonsense to think that fanaticisjn 
 makes for the progress of mankind. It is, instead, a retarding 
 block, hy making hatred and anger, and causing people to fight 
 each other, and making them unsympathetic. Whatever we do or 
 possess we think the best in the world, and those things we do not 
 possess are of no yalue. So, always remember this curly tail of the 
 dog whenever you have a tendency to become a fanatic. You need 
 not worry or make yourself sleepless; the world will go on. When 
 you have avoided fanaticism then alone will you work well. It is the 
 level-headed man, the calm man, of good judgment and cool nerves, 
 of great sympathy and love, who does good work. The fanatic has 
 no sympathy. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 NOX-ATTACHMENT IS COMPLETE SELF-ABNEGATION. 
 
 Just as every action tbat emanates from us comes back to 
 ns, even so our actions may act on other people and theirs on us. 
 Perhaps all of you have observed it as a fact ithat when persons do 
 evil actions they become more and more evil, and when they begin 
 to do good they become stronger and stronger and do good all the 
 time. This multiplication of action cannot be explained on any other 
 ground, except that we can act and readt upon each other. To 
 take a simile from physical science, when I am doing a certain 
 action my mind is in a certain form of vibration; all minds under 
 similar circumstances would have the tendency to be affected by my 
 mind. If there are different musical instruments in one room all 
 of you have noticed that if one is struck the others have the ten- 
 dency to vibrate the same note. So, taking this as an illustration, 
 it shows that the instruments had each the same tension and would 
 be affected alike by the same impulse. So all minds that have the 
 same tension will be equally affected by the same thought. Of 
 course, it will vary, according to the distance, but it will be open 
 to be affected. Suppose I am doing an evil act, my mind is in a 
 certain state of vibration, and all minds in the universe, in the 
 similar state, will have the possibility of being affected by my mind. 
 So, when I am doing a good action, my mind has another state 
 of tensiion, and all minds similarly stringed will have the pos- 
 sibility of being affected, and this power of affection will be more 
 or less according to the tension. 
 
 Following this simile further, it is quite possible that, just as 
 light waves may travel for millions of years before they reach their 
 object, so these thought waves may travel hundreds of years, until 
 they meet with an object with which they vibrate in unison. It is 
 quite possible, therefore, that this atmosphere of ours is full of such 
 thought pulsations, both good and evil. Every thought projected 
 from every brain goes on pulsating, as it were, until it meets an ob- 
 ject. Any mind which is opening itself to receive some of these 
 
33 
 
 will receive them immediately. So, when a man is doing evil ac- 
 tion, he has brought his mind to a certain state of tension, and all 
 the waves corresponding to that state of tension, which are al- 
 ready in the atmosphere, will struggle to enter his mind. 
 That is why an evil doer generally goes on doing more and more 
 evil. His action is intensified. Such, also, will be the case with 
 the doer of good; he will open himself to all the good waves that are 
 in the atmosphere, and his good actions will 'be intensified. We 
 run, therefore, a twofold danger in doing evil; first, we open our- 
 selves to all the evil influences surrounding us; secondly, we create 
 evil which will affect others. It may be possible that our evil ac- 
 tions will affect others hundreds of years hence. In doing evil we in- 
 jure ourselves and others also. In doing good we do good to ourselves 
 and to others, and, like all other forces in man, these good and evil 
 forces gather strength from outside. 
 
 According to Karma Yoga, the action one has done cannot be de- 
 stroyed until it has borne fruit; no power in nature can stop it 
 from bearing its results. If I do an evil action, I musit suffer for it; 
 there is no power in this universe to stop or stay it. So, 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 
 restrain it. Now comes a very fine and serious question about 
 Karma Yoga — that these actions of ours, either good or evil, are in- 
 timately connected with each other. We cannot put a line of de- 
 marcation and isay this action is entirely good and this entirelj'" 
 evil. There is no action which does not bear good and evil 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 doing evil to something else. When it is very near to us and 
 affects those we know we say it is very good action, if it affects 
 them in a good manner. For instance, you may call my speaking to 
 you very good, but the microbes will not; the microbes you do not 
 see, but yourselves you do see. The affection to you is obvious, 
 but that to the microbes is not obvious. And so, if we analyze our 
 evil actions, we will find that some good was done somewhere. "He 
 who in good action sees that there is something evil in it and who in 
 the midst of evil sees that there is something good in it somewhere 
 has known the secret of work." 
 
 But what follows from it? That, however we may try, there 
 cannot be any action which is perfectly pure, or any which is per- 
 fectly impure, taking purity or impurity in the sense of injury or non- 
 injury. We cannot breathe or live without injuring others, and 
 every bit of food we eat is taken from another's mouth; our very lives 
 
34 
 
 are crowding out 'some other lives. It may be men, or animals, or 
 small microbes, but some one we have to crowd out. That being 
 the case, it naturally follows that perfection can never be attained 
 by work. We may work through all eternity, but there will be no 
 way out of this intricate maze; you may work on, and on, and on;, 
 there will be no end. 
 
 The second point to consider is. What is the end of work? We 
 find the vast majority of people in every country believing that there 
 will be a time when this world will become perfect, when there will 
 be no disease, or death, or unhappiness, or wickedness! That is a 
 Very good idea, a very good motive power for the ignorant, but if we 
 think for a moment we wall find thalt on the very face of it it can- 
 not be so. How can it be, seeing that good and bad are the ob- 
 verse and reverse of the same coin? How can jovl have good without 
 evil at the same time? What is meant by perfection? A perfect 
 life is a contradiction in terms. Life itself is a state of continuous 
 struggle between ourselves and everything outside. Every moment 
 we are fighting with external nature, and if we are defeated our life 
 will have to go. It is a continuous struggle for food. If food fails 
 we die. Life is not a simple effect, but a compound effect. This 
 compound struggle between something inside and the external 
 world is what we call life. So, on the very face of it, when this 
 struggle ceases, there will be an end of life. 
 
 What is meant by this ideal happiness is that this struggle will 
 cease altogethcT. But then life will cease, and the struggle can. only 
 cease when life has ceased. Then, again, before we have attained 
 to one-thousandth part of it, this earth will have cooled down, 
 and we will not be. So thiS' millennium cannot /be in this world, if it 
 can be anywhere else. Every act of charity, every thought of sym- 
 pathy, every action of help, every good deed, is taking so much 
 away from our little selves and making us think of ourselves the least 
 and, therefore, is good. Here we find that the Gnani, or Bhakta, or 
 Karmi, all come to one point. The highest ideal is eternal and entire 
 self-abnegation, where there is no "I," but is all thou; and consciously, 
 or unconsciously. Karma Yoga leads to that. It is the basis of all 
 morality; you may extend it to men, or animals, or angels, but it is the 
 one basic idea, the one fundamental principle running through all 
 ethical systems. 
 
 You will find various classes of men in this world. First, there 
 are the God-men, who are abnegating themselves entirely and will 
 do good to others, even at the sacrifice of their own lives. These 
 are the highest of men. If there are a hundred of such in any coun- 
 try, that country need not despair. Then there are good men, who 
 do good to others so long as it does not injuTe themselves; and there 
 
35 
 
 is a third class, the dliabolical people, who, to do good to them- 
 selves, would injure others. It is said there is a fourth class of 
 people, who will injure others for injury's sake. Just as there are 
 at one pole of existence the good men, who will do good for good's 
 sake, so, at the other pole, there are others who will injure others, just 
 for the sake of injury. They do not gain anything thereby, but it is 
 their nature. So we see that the man who sacrifices himself to do 
 good to others, the man with the highest self-abnegation, is the 
 greatest man. 
 
 Here are two Sanskrit words. One is called "Pravritti," revolv- 
 ing towards," and the other is "Nivritti," revolving away. The 
 "revolving towards" is what we call the world, 'T and mine," those 
 who are always enriching that "me" by wealth, and moneys, and 
 power, and name, and fame, gra-sping, always wanting to accumu- 
 late everything towards one centre, and that centre "myself." That 
 is the "pravritti," the natural tendency of every human being; tak- 
 ing everything from everywhere and heaping it around one centre, 
 and that centre is his own sweet self. When this begins to break, 
 when it is "nivritti," "going away from," then begin morality and 
 religion. Both "pravritti" and "nivritti" are work, but one is evil 
 w^ork, and the other is good work. This "nivritti" is the basis of all 
 morality and all religion, and the very perfection of it Is entire self- 
 abnegation, readiness to sacrifice mind, body and everything for 
 another being. When a man has reached to that state he has at- 
 tained to the perfection of Karma Yoga. This is the highest result 
 of good works. If a man has not studied a single philosophy, if he 
 does not believe in any God, and never has, if he has never prayed 
 once in his whole life, but, 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 find that the philosopher, and the 
 worker, and the devotee, all meet at one point, and that one point is 
 self-abnegation. However the systems of philosophy may differ 
 in opinion, all mankind stands in reverence and awe before the man 
 who is ready to sacrifice himself for others. No more question of 
 creed, or doctrine— even men who are very much opposed to all re- 
 ligious ideas, when they see one of these acts of complete self-sac- 
 rifice, must revere it. Have you not seen even a mosx bigoted Chris- 
 tian, when he reads Edwin Arnold's "Light of Asia," stand in rev- 
 erence of Buddha, who preached no God, preached nothing but self- 
 sacrifice? The only thing is that the bigot does not know that his 
 own aim and end in life is exactly the same. The worshipper, by 
 keeping constant: the idea of God and a surrounding of good, comes 
 
36 
 
 to the same point at last, "Thy will be done," and keeps nothing for 
 himself. That is self-abnegation. The philosopher, with his knowl- 
 edge, sees that the seeming self is a delusion and easily gives it 
 up; yet it is self-abnegation, go Karma, Bhakta and Gnana all meet 
 here, and this is what was meant by all the great preachers of 
 ancient times, when they taught that God is not the world. There 
 is one thing which is world and another which is God, and this is 
 very true; what they mean by the world is selfishness. Unselfishness 
 is God. One may live on a throne, in a golden palace, and be perfectly 
 unselfish, and he is in God. Another may live in a hut, and wear 
 rags, and have nothing in the world, yet, if he is selfish, he is in- 
 tensely merged in the world. 
 
 To come back to one of our points, we say that we cannot do 
 good without doing some evil, or evil without doing some good. 
 Knowing this, how can we work? A solution is found in the Gita, 
 the theory of non-attachment, to be attached to nothing. Know 
 that you are separated entirely from this world; that you are in the 
 world, but whatever you are doing, you are not doing for your 
 •own sake. Any action that you do for yourself will bring an effect 
 on you. If it is a good action you will have to take the good effect, 
 and, if bad, you will have to take the (bad effect; but any action that 
 iS' not done for your own sake, whatever it be, will have no effect on 
 you. Even if he kill the whole universe, he is neither killed nor 
 is killing, when he knows he is not acting for himself at all.. There- 
 fore, Karma Yoga teaches, do not give up the world; live in the 
 world, take it in as much as you can, but for enjoyment's sake — not 
 at all. Enjoyment should not be the goal. First kill yourself and 
 then take the whole world as yourself, "the old man must die." 
 This old man is this selfish idea that the whole world is made for our 
 enjoyment. Foolish parents teach their children to pray, "O Lord, 
 thou createst thisi suni for me and this moon for me," as if the Lord 
 had nothing else to do than to create everything for these babies. 
 That is only heaping fuel on fire. Do ntot teach your children such 
 nonsense. Then, again, there are people who are secondarily foolish; 
 they teach us that all these animals were created for us to kill and 
 eat, and that this univrse is for the enjoyment of men. That is all 
 foolishness. A tiger might say, "Man was created for me," and 
 pray, "O Lord, how wicked are these men, who do not come and put 
 themselves before us to be eaten; they are breaking your law." If 
 the world is created for us we are also created for the world. That 
 this world is created for our enjoyment is the idea that holds us 
 down. This world is not for our sake; millions pass out of it every 
 year; the world does not feel it; millions of others have been sup- 
 plied. Just as the world is for us, we are for the world. 
 
37 
 
 To work, therefore, first give up the idea of attachment. Sec- 
 ondly, do not mix in the fray; hold yourself as a witness and go on 
 working. A sage has said, "Look upon your children as your nurse 
 does." The nurse will take your baby and fondle it and play with it 
 and behave as gently as if it were her own child, but as soon as you 
 give her notice she is ready to start off with her baggage from the 
 house. Everything is forgotten; it would not give the ordinary nurse 
 the least pang to leave your children and take up other children. 
 Even so be with your own. You are the nurse, and, if you believe 
 in God, believe that these are all His. The greatest weakness gen- 
 erally insinuates itself as the greatest good and strength. This ia 
 weakness to think that some one depends on me, and I can do good 
 to somebody. This pride is the mother of all our attachment, and 
 throug'h this attachment comes all our pain. We must inform our 
 mind that no one in this universe depends upon us; not one beggar 
 depends on our charity; not one soul on our kindness; not one on 
 our help. They are all helped and will be helped if millions of us 
 were not here. The course of nature will not stop for you and me; it 
 is only a blessed privilege to you and me that we are allowed in the 
 shape of help to others, to educate ourselves. This is one lesson to 
 learn, through the whole of our lives, and when we have learned 
 it fully we shall never be unhappy; we can go and mix anywhere 
 and everywhere. This very year some of our friends may have died. 
 Is the world waiting for them? Is its current stopped? It goes on. 
 So drive out, thrash out of your mind, this idea that you have to do 
 something for the world; the world does not require iiny help from 
 you. When you have trained your nerves and your muscles to this 
 idea there will be no reaction in the form of pain. When you give 
 something to a man and expect nothing— do not expect the man to 
 be grateful — it will not tell upon you, because you never expected 
 anything, never thought you had a right to anything : you gave 
 what he deserved; his own Karma got it for him; your Karma 
 made you the caiTier. Why should you be proud of giving some- 
 thing? You are the porter who carried the money, and the 
 world deserved it by its own Karma. Where is the reason for 
 pride? There is nothing very great in what you give to the world. 
 When you have got the feeling of non-attachment there will be 
 neither good nor evil work for you. It is only selfishness that makes, 
 the difference of good and evil. It is a very hard thing to under- 
 stand, but you will come to learn in time that nothing in the uni- 
 verse has power over you until you admit it. Nothing has power 
 over the Self of man until the Self becomes a fool and obeys the 
 power. So, by non-attachment, you deny the power of anything 
 to act upon you. It is very easy to say that nothing has the right to- 
 
38 
 
 f 
 
 act upon you until you allow It, but wliat is the sign of the man 
 
 who really does not allow anything to work upon him, who is neither 
 happy nor unhappy, when he is acted upon hy the external world? 
 The sign is that it makes no change in his mind; in good fortune or 
 in ill he remains the same. 
 
 There was a great sage called Vyasa. This Vyasa was the 
 writer of the Vedanta philosophy, a holy man. His father had tried 
 to become a very p.erfect man and failed; his grandfather tried, 
 failed. His great-grandfather tried, failed. He himself did not 
 succeed perfectly, but his son, Shuka, was born perfect. He taught 
 this son, and, after teaching him himself, he sent him to the court 
 of King Janaka. There was a great king called Janaka Videha. 
 Videha meians "outside fthe body." Although a king, he had entirely 
 forgotten that he was a body; he was a spirit all the time. This 
 boy was sent to be taught by him. The King knew that Vyasa' s 
 son was coming to him to learn, so he made certain arrangements 
 beforehand, and when this boy presented himself at the gates of the 
 palace the guards itook no notice of him whatsover. They only gave 
 him a place to sit, and he sat there for three days and nights, no- 
 body speaking to him, nobody asking who he was or whence he was. 
 He was the son of this great sage; his father was honored by the 
 whole country, and he himself was a most 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 honors. They took 
 him in and showed him into splendid rooms, gave him the most 
 fragrant baths and wonderful dresses, and for eight days they kept 
 him there in all kinds of luxury. That face did not change; he was 
 the same in the midst of this luxury as at the door. Then he was 
 brought before the King. The King was on his throne, music was 
 playing, and dancing and other. amusements going on. The King 
 gave him a cup of milk, full to the brim, and asked him to go seven 
 times round the hall without spilling a drop. The boy took the cup 
 and proceeded in the midst of this music and the beautiful faces. 
 Seven times he went round, and no't a drop of milk was spilled. The 
 boy's mind could not be ajttracted by anything in the world, unless 
 he allowed it. And when he brought the cup to the King, the King 
 said to him, "What your father has taught you and what you have 
 learned yourself I only repeat; you have known the truth; go 
 home." 
 
 Thus, the man that has practised control over himself cannot be 
 acted upon by anything outside; there is no more slavery for him. 
 The mind has become free; such a man is alone fit to live in the 
 world. We generally find men of two opinions. To those who have 
 
39 
 
 not controlled their own minds this world is either full of evil or a 
 mixture of good and evil. This very w^orld will become an optimistic 
 woiM when we have become masters of our own minds. Nothing will 
 "work upon us as good or evil; we shall find everything harmonious. 
 Some men who begin by saying the world is a hell will end by saying 
 it is heaven. If we are genuine Karma Yogis and want to train our- 
 selves to this state, wherever we may begin we shall end in perfect 
 self-abnegation, and as soon as this seeming self has gone this 
 Whole world, which at first appears to us to be filled with evil, will 
 appear to be heaven and full of blessedness. Its very atmosphere 
 will be blessed; every human face will be good. This is the goal and 
 end of Karma Yoga, and this is perfection. So, you see, these 
 various Yogas do not conflict with each other; each one goes to the 
 same goal and makes us perfect, but each one has to be practised. 
 The whole secret is in practising. First hear, then think, and then 
 practise. This is true of every Yoga. You have first to hear about 
 it and understand what it is, and many things you do not under- 
 stand, by constant hearing, w^ll be made clear. It is hard to under- 
 stand everything at once. The explanation of everything is in your- 
 self. No one was ever taught by another; each one of us has to teach 
 Taimself. The external teacher is only the suggestiion which rouses 
 the internal teacher to understand things. Then things w^ill be made 
 ■clearer by the power of perception, and we shall realize them in our 
 own souls, and that will become the intense power of will. First feel- 
 ing, then it becomes willing, and out of that willingness will come the 
 tremendous powder of work that will go through every vein, and 
 nerve, and muscle, until the whole mass of your body is changed into 
 that unselfish Yoga of work, and the result will be perfect self-ab- 
 negation; utter unselfishness. It does not depend on any dogma, or 
 ■doctrine, or belief; either Christian, or Jew, or Gentile, it does not 
 matter. Are you unselfish? That is the question. If you are you 
 will be perfect without reading a single religious book, without going 
 into a single church or temple. "Fools alone say that work and phil- 
 osophy are different, not the learned." The learned know that, 
 though apparently different from each other, they at least come to the 
 same goal, and that is perfection. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 FREEDOM. 
 
 In additioii to meaning work, we have seen tliat the word Karma- 
 also means causation. Any work, any action, any tliougiit, that pro- 
 duces an effect is called a Karma. This law of Karma means the law 
 of causation; wheresoeA^er there is a cause, an effect must he produced; 
 it cannot he resisted, and that law of Karma, according to our philos- 
 ophy, is pervading the w^hole universe. Whatever we see, or feel, or 
 do; wTiatever action there is anywhere in the universe, is but the eft'ect 
 of past work on the one hand, and, on the other hand, becomes the 
 cause, and produces another effect. It is necessary, together with this, 
 to consider the word law\ We see psychologically that law is the ten- 
 dency of a series to repeat itself. When we see one event followed by 
 another, or sometimes happening simultaneously, we expect this will 
 always follow. A series of phenomena become associated in our mind 
 in a sort of invariable order, so that what we see at one time im- 
 mediately refers to other facts in the mind. One idea, or, according to 
 our psychology, one wave, produced in the mind stuff, always produces 
 many similar ones. This is the law of association, and causation is 
 only a part of this law of pervasive association. In the external world 
 the idea of law is the same as in the internal world — the expectation 
 that one phenomenon will be followed by another, and that the series 
 will repeat itself, so far as we can see. Really speaking, therefore, law 
 does not exist in nature. Practically, it is an error to say that gravita- 
 tion exists in the earth, or that there is any law existing anywhere in 
 nature. Law is the method, the manner in w^Mch our mind grasps a 
 series of phenomena; it is all in the mind. Certain phenomena hap- 
 pening together, followed by the conviction with which our mind 
 grasps the whole series, is what iwe call law. 
 
 The next question will be what we mean by law being universal. 
 Our universe is that portion of existence which is cut off by what the 
 Sanskrit psychologists call "nama Rupa" (name and form). This uni- 
 verse is only one part of that infinite existence, which has been thrown 
 into a peculiar mould, or tfiat is composed of name and form, and 
 when it fills that mould that part of the sum total of existence which; 
 
41 
 
 fills the mould is what is called our universe. It necessarily follows 
 that law is only possible within this universe; beyond that there can 
 not be any law. When we speak of this universe we only mean that 
 portion of existence which is limited by our mind; the universe of 
 senses, which we can see, feel, touch, hear, think of, imagine; that 
 poition of the universe alone is under law, but beyond that it cannot 
 be under law, because causation does not extend beyond that. Any- 
 thing beyond the range of our mind and our senses is not bound by 
 the law of causation, as there is no association beyond the senses, and 
 no causation without association of ideas. It is only when it gets 
 moulded into name and form that existence obeys the law of causa- 
 tion, and is said to be under law, because law has its essence in 
 causation. Therefore, we see at once that there cannot be any free 
 will; the very w^ords are a contradiction, because will is what we 
 know, and everything that we know is within our universe, and every- 
 thing within our universe has been moulded into name and form, and 
 everything that we know, or can possibly know, must obey causation, 
 and that which obeys the laws of causation cannot be free. It is acted 
 upon by other agents, and becomes cause in turn, and so on. But that 
 which became converted into the will, which was not the will, but 
 which, when it fell into this mould, became converted into the human 
 will, is free, and when this will gets out of this mould of causation 
 it will be free again. From freedom it comes, and becomes moulded 
 into this bondage, and it gets out and goes back to freedom. 
 
 The question was raised from whom this universe comes, in whom 
 it rests, and to whom it goes; and the answer was given, from that 
 freedom it comes, it rests in bondage, and it goes back into that free- 
 dom. So, when we speak of man as that being who is manifesting, 
 only one part is man; this body and this mind which we see are only 
 one part of the whole man, only one spot of that infinite being which is. 
 man. This whole universe is only one speck of the infinite being, and 
 all our laws, and our bondages, our joys and our sorrows, our happi- 
 nesses, and our expectations, are only within this small universe, all 
 our progression and digression are within this small space. So you 
 see how childish it is to expect a continuation of this universe, to ex- 
 pect and hope to go to heaven, which means a repetition of this world 
 .that we have. You see at once that it is an impossible and childish 
 desire to make the whole infinite universe conform to that existence 
 which we know. So. when a man says he will have this thing again 
 a^nd again which he is having now, or, as I sometimes say, when he 
 asks for a comfortable religion, you may know that he has become so 
 degenerate that he cannot think of anything higher than he is now, 
 just his little present surroundings. He has forgotten his infinite 
 nature, and his whole idea is confined to these little joys and sorrow?, 
 
42 
 
 and heart jealousies of the moment. He thinks this is the infinite, 
 and not only so, he will not let it go. He clings on desperately unto 
 Thrishna, the thirst after life. There are millions of happinesses, and 
 beings, and laws, and progresses, and causations all acting apart 
 from what we know, and this is tout one section of our nature. 
 
 To acquire freedom we have to get beyond this universe; it cannat 
 be found here. To acquire perfect equilibrium cannot be in this uni- 
 verse, nor in heaven, or earth, or anywhere where thoughts can go, 
 or the mind, where the senses can feel, see, hear or touch, or which 
 we can imagine. No such place can give that, because it would be all 
 within our universe, and that universe must be bound by causation. It 
 may be much finer than this; there are places that are much finer than 
 this earth of ours, where enjoyments will be keener, but it will be in 
 the universe, and therefore in bondage, so we will have to go beyond, 
 and real religion begins there, where this little universe ends. These 
 little joys, and sorrows, and knowledges end there, and the real begins. 
 Until we can give up this thirst after life, this strong attachment to 
 this one moment of existence, we have no hope of catching even a 
 glimpse of that infinite freedom beyond. It stands then that there is 
 only one way to attain to that freedom, which is the goal of mankind, 
 and that is by giving up this little life, giving up this little universe, 
 :giving up this earth, giving up heaven, giving up the roody, giving up 
 the mind, giving up everything. If we can give up this little universe 
 of the senses, or the mind, immediately we shall be free. The only 
 way to come out of bondage is to go beyond law, go beyond causation, 
 and wherever this universe exists, there causation prevails. 
 
 But it is a most diflicult thing to give up this universe; few ever 
 attain to that. There are two ways in cur books. One is called the 
 "neti neti" (not this, not this), the negative, and the other is called the 
 "iti iti" (this, this), the positive wslj. The negative way is the most 
 ■difficult. It is only possible to the very highest, exceptional minds, 
 gigantic will powers, who simply stand and say "No, I will not have 
 this," and the mind and body obey, and they come out. But such 
 people are very rare, and the vast majority of mankind choose the 
 positive way, the way through this world, making use of all the bon- 
 dages themselves to break those bondages. That is also giving up, 
 only slowly and gradually, by knowing things, enjoying things, and 
 thus getting experience, and knowing the nature of things, until the 
 mind lets them go away and becomes unattached. The one is by rea- 
 soning and the other is through work. The first is for the Gnani, and 
 is by refusing to work, and the second is Karma Yoga, by working. 
 Every one must work in the universe. Only those who are perfectly 
 satisfied with the Self, whose desires do not go beyond the Self, whose 
 mind never strays out of the Self, to whom that Self is all in all, do not 
 
43 
 
 work. The rest must all work, A current rushing down stream of 
 its own nature, falls into a hollow and makes a whirlpool, and, after 
 running a little in that whirlpool, it emerges again in the form of the 
 free current. So each human life is like that current. It gets into the 
 whirl, gets involved in this world of name and form, whirls round a 
 little, crj^ing, my father, my brother, my name, my fame, and at last 
 •emerges, and regains its freedom. The whole universe is doing that, 
 whether it knows it or not, consciously or unconsciously. Evei*y one 
 is having this experience, and in the long run getting out of this 
 whirlpool. 
 
 But wliat is Karma Yoga? Knowing the secret of work. We see 
 that the whole universe is working. For what? For salvation, for 
 liberty, consciously or unconsciously, from the atom to the highest 
 being; working from that one end, liberty for the mind, for the body, 
 for the spirit, for everything; always trying to get freedom, flying 
 away from bondage. The sun, moon, earth, the planets, all are trying 
 to fly from bondage. Karma Yoga tells us the secret, the method of 
 work. Instead of being knocked about in this universe, and after long 
 4elay and thrashing, getting to know things a-s they are. Karma Yoga 
 teaches us the secret of work, the method of work, the organizing 
 ipower of work. The vast mass of energy may be spent in vain, if we 
 do not know how to utilize it. Karma Yoga makes a science of it; you 
 learn how to utilize all the workings of this world. Work is inevitable, 
 it must be, but work to the highest purpose. Karma Yoga makes us 
 admit that this world is a world of five minutes ; that it is something 
 we have to pass through; that that freedom is not here, but we must 
 go beyond to come to freedom. To find the way out we will have to 
 go through it slowly and surely. There msij be those exceptional per- 
 sons about whom I just spoke, who can stand aside and give it up, as 
 a snake casts off its skin and stands aside and looks at it; there are 
 some of these exceptional beings; but for the rest of mankind, they 
 - have to slowly go through it, and Karma Yoga shows to the world the 
 process, the secret, the method of doing it to the best advantage. 
 
 What does it say? "Work thou incessantly, but give up all at- 
 tachment to. work." Do not identify yourself with anything. Hold 
 your mind free. All this that you see, the pains and the miseries, are 
 but conditions of this world; poverty and wealth, and happiness, are 
 but momentary; they do not belong to our nature at all. Our nature 
 is far beyond miseiy, or happiness, beyond everything of the senses, 
 beyond the imagination; and yet we must go on working all the time. 
 "Misery comes through attachment, not through work." As soon as 
 we identify ourselves with the work we feel miserable, but if we do 
 not identifv ourselves with it we do not feel that misery. If a beauti- 
 
44 
 
 fill picture belonging to another is burned a man does not become 
 miserable, but when his own picture is burned how miserable he 
 feels! Why? Both were beautiful pictures, perhaps copies of the 
 same original, but in one case misery is felt and not in the other. It 
 is because in one case he identifies himself with the picture, and not 
 in the other. This "I and mine" causes the whole misery. With pos- 
 session came selfishness, and selfishness brought misery. Every act 
 of selfishness or thought of selfishness make us attached to something 
 behind, and immediately we are made slaves. Each wave in the 
 chitta that says "I and mine," immediately puts a chain round us 
 and makes, us slaves, and the more we say "I and mine" the more 
 slavery grows, the more misery increases. Therefore, Karma Yoga 
 tells us to enjoy all the pictures in the world, but not to identify 
 ourselves with them. Never say "mine." W^henever we say a thing is 
 mine, misery will immediately come. Do not even say "My child" in 
 your mind. Enjoy the child, but do not say "mine." If you do, then 
 will come the misery. Do not say, "my house," do not saj "my body." 
 The whole difficulty is there. The body is neither j^ours nor mine nor 
 anybody's. These bodies are coming and going by the laws of nature, 
 but we are free, standing as witness. This body is no more free than 
 a picture, or the wall. Why should we attach ourselves to a body? 
 If somebody paints a picture, he does it and passes away. Why be 
 attached to it? Let it pass. Do not project that tentacle of selfish- 
 ness, "I will possess it." As soon as that is projected misery will 
 begin. 
 
 So the Karma Yogi says, first destroy the tendency to project this 
 tentacle of selfishness, and when you have the power of checking 
 that, hold it in, do not allow the mind to get into that sort of wave. 
 Then go out into the world and work as much as you can. Mix 
 everywhere; go where you please; you will never be touched. Like 
 the lotus leaf in water, the water cannot touch it; so will you be. This 
 is called "vairaghyam," the law of Karma Yoga, non-attachment. I 
 have just told you that without non-attachment there cannot be any 
 Yoga. It is the basis of all the Yogas, and this is the real meaning of 
 non-attachment; the man who gives up living in houses, and wearing 
 fine clothes, and eating good food, and goes into the desert, msiy be a 
 most attached person. His only possession, his own body, may become 
 everything to him, and he is struggling for his body. Non-attachment 
 does not mean Avhat we do in our external body, but it is in the mind; 
 this connecting link of "I and mine" is in the body. If we have not 
 this link with the body, and with things of the senses, we are non- 
 attached, wherever we be. A man may be on a throne and perfectly 
 non-attached; another man may be in rags and still very much at- 
 tached. First, we attain to this non-attachment, and then we work 
 
45 
 
 incessantly. The Karma Yogi gives method to help ns in giving up 
 this attachment. It is hard to give it up. 
 
 Here are the two ways of giving up all attachment. The one is 
 for those who do not believe in God, or in outside help. They are left 
 to their own devices; they have simply to work with their own will, 
 the power of the mind, that "I must be non-attached," and with the 
 power of discrimination. For those who believe in God, it is less 
 difficult. They give up the fruits of work unto the Lord, and then go 
 to work and are never attached to the results. Whatever they see, 
 feel, hear, do, is for Him. Whatever good work we do, let us not 
 take any praise to ourselves. It is the Lord's; give up the fruits unto 
 Him. The grandest works that we do in our lives, never let us think 
 that we shall receive the benefits thereof, or that we have done a good 
 work. Let us be at peace, perfect peace, with ourselves, and give up 
 our whole body and mind and everything as an eternal sacrifiee. 
 Instead of the sacrifice of pouring oblations into the fire, make this 
 one great sacrifice day and night — the sacrifice of the little self. Day 
 and night renounce the seeming self until it becomes a habit, until it 
 gets into the blood, the nerves, the brain, and the whole body is every 
 moment obedient to this idea. Then we can go out anywhere, nothing 
 will touch us. Go into the midst of the battle field, with roaring 
 cannon and the din of war, and we shall be free and at peace. 
 
 Karma Yoga teaches us dutj^ as on the lower plane; each one of us 
 must do his duty. This is my duty, and that is my duty. Yet we see 
 that this duty is the one great cause of misery. It becomes a disease 
 with us; drags us ever forward. It clutches hold of us and makes our 
 whole life miserable. It is the bane of human life. "This duty; this 
 idea of duty is the mid-day summer sun which scorches the innermost 
 soul of mankind." Look at those poor slaves to duty. Duty leaves 
 them no time to think of anything else, no time to say prayers, no time 
 to bathe. Duty is ever on them. They go out and work. Duty is on 
 them. They come home and think of the work for next day. Duty is 
 on them I It is living a slave's life, at last dropping down in the street 
 and dying in harness, like a horse. This' is duty as it is understood. 
 The only duty is to be unattached and to work as free beings. Blessed 
 are we that we/ are here. We serve our time; whether we do it ill or 
 well, who knows ? If we do it well, we do not get the fruits. If we do 
 it ill, neither do we get care. Be at rest, be free, and work. This is a 
 very hard thing to attain. How easy it is to interpret slavery as 
 duty— the mOki*bid attachment of flesh for flesh as duty! Men go out 
 into the world and struggle and fight for money. Ask them why they 
 do it. They say:— "It is a duty." It is the absurd greed for gold, and 
 they want to cover it with a few flowers. 
 
 What is duty, after all? All duty is behind; it is this impulsation 
 
46 
 
 of the flesh, our attaciiment; and when an attachment has been estab- 
 lished, we call it duty. For instance, in countries where there is no 
 marriagre, there is no duty between husband and wife; when marriage 
 comes and husband and wife live together, they live together on ac- 
 count of flesh attachment, and that becomes settled after generations,, 
 and when it becomes settled it becomes a duty. It is a sort of chronic 
 disease. When it is acute we call it a disease, when it is chronic we 
 call it nature. It is a disease. So when attachment becomes chronic 
 we baptize i't with the high sounding name of duty. We strew flowers 
 upon it, trumpets yound, sacred texts are said over it, and then the 
 whole world fights, and each one robs the other for this duty's sake. 
 Duty is good; it checks brutality to a certain extent. To the lowest 
 men, who cannot have any other ideal, it is of some good, but those 
 who want to be Karma Yogis must throw this idea of duty overboard. 
 There is no duty for you and me. Whatever you have to give to the 
 world, give, but not as a duty. Do not take any thought of that. Be 
 not compelled. Why should you be compelled ? Everything'that you 
 do under compulsion is attachment. Why should you have any duty? 
 You have no duty under the sun. If you want reward you must also 
 have punishment; the only way to get out of the punishment is to give 
 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 happiness, on the other misery. On one side life, on the 
 other death. The only way to get beyond death is to give up life; not. 
 to care for it. Life and death are the same thing, looked at from 
 different points. So the idea of happiness without misery, or life with- 
 out death is very good for school boys and children, but the thinker 
 sees that it is a contradiction of terms and gives up both. Seek no 
 praise, no reward, for anything you do. It is a very hard task. No 
 sooner do we do a good action; than we begin to desire credit for it. No 
 sooner do we give money to some charity than we want to see our 
 names in the papers. Misery must come as the result of such desires. 
 The greatest men in the world have passed away unknown. The 
 Buddhas and the Christs that you see are but second degree men in 
 comparison with them. Hundreds of them have lived in every 
 country, working silently. Silently they pass away, and in time 
 their thoughts find expression in Buddhas or Christs, and the latter 
 become known to us. The highest men did.not seek to get any name 
 or fame from their knowledge. Their whole nature shrank from it. 
 They are the pure Sattvikis, who can never make any stir, but melt 
 down in love. 
 
 Next in order come men with more Rajas, or activity, combative 
 natures, who take up the ideas of the perfect ones and preach them to 
 the world. These highest ones silently collect ideas and the others. 
 
47 
 
 the Buddhas and Christs, go from place to place preaching and work- 
 ing. The highest men are calm, silent and unknown. They are the 
 men who really know the power of thought; they are sure that even 
 if they go into a cave and close up the door, simply think five thoughts 
 and pass away, these five thoughts will live through eternity. Thej^ 
 will penetrate through the mountains and cross oceans, and travel 
 through the world, and will enter into some brain and raise up some 
 man who will give expression to these thoughts. These men are too 
 near the Lord to become active and fight, w^orking, struggling, preach- 
 ing, and doing good to humanity. The active workers, however good, 
 have still a little remnant of ignorance. When our nature has yet 
 some impurities left, then alone can we work. The highest men can- 
 not work. "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." So these are the highest of man- 
 kind, who cannot work; but aside from these, every one has to work. 
 But never think you can help the least thing in this universe. You 
 can not. You only help yourself in this gymnasium of the world. 
 This is the attitude of work. If you work in this way; if you always 
 remember that it is a privilege which has been given you, you will 
 never be attached. This world goes on. Millions like you and me 
 think we are great people in the world, but we die, and in five 
 minutes the world has forgotten us. Give up all fruits of work; do 
 good for good's sake; then alone will come perfect non-attachment. 
 The bonds of the heart will break, and we shall reap perfect freedom. 
 This is the secret of Karma. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE IDEAL OF KARMA YOGA. 
 
 The idea is that we are to reach the same goal by different 
 meanis, and these means I generalize into four— work, love, psychol- 
 ogy and knowledge. But you must, at the same time, remember 
 that these divisions are not very marked. Each blends into the other, 
 but as the tyiDe prevails the divisions come. It is not that you can- 
 not find a man who has no other faculty excepting that of work, or 
 that you cannot find men who are more than worshippers only, nor 
 men who have more than knowledge. These divisions are made on 
 account of the type or tendency that prevails in a man. We have 
 found that, in the end, they all converge and become one, reach- 
 ing one goal. All religions and all methods of work are going towards 
 that goal. 
 
 First I will try to point out the goal. What is the goal of the 
 whole universe? Freedom. Everything that we see, feel, hear is 
 struggling towards freedom, from the atom to the man, from the 
 insentient, lifeless particle of matter to the highest human existence, 
 the human soul. The whole universe is the result of this struggle 
 for freedom. In all these combinations every particle is trying to 
 fly from the other particles, and the others are holding it in check. 
 Our earth is trying to fly from the sun and the moon from the earth. 
 Everything has a tendency to infinite dispersion. All that we see in 
 this universe, good, bad or indifferent, all the work or thought that 
 is in this universe, has for its basis this one struggle towards free- 
 dom; it is under the impulse of this that the saint prays and the 
 robber robs. When the line of action taken is not a proper one we 
 call it evil, and when the manifestation is proper and high we call it 
 good. But the imipulse is the same, to struggle towards that free- 
 dom. The saint is oppressed with the idea of his bondage, and he 
 wants to get rid of it, so he worships God. The thief is oppressed 
 with the idea that he does not possess certain things, and he wants 
 to get rid of that, to get freedom from it, so he steals. Freedom is 
 the one goal of all nature, sentient or insentient, and, consciously or 
 unconsciously, everything is struggling towards that. 
 
49 
 
 We find in every religion the manifestation of this struggle 
 towards freedom. It is the groundwork of all morality, of unseltish- 
 ness, which means getting out of 'the idea that I am this little body. 
 When we see a man doing good work, helping others, it means that 
 that man will not be confined within the limited circle of "me and 
 mine." There is no limit to this getting out. All the great systems 
 of ethics preach absolute unselfishness as the goal. Supposing this 
 absolute unselfishness can be reached by a man, what becomes of 
 that manV He is no more that little Mr. So-and-so; ^he has acquired 
 infinite expansion. That little personality which he had before is 
 lost forever; he has become infinite, and the attainment of this in- 
 finite expansion is the goal of all religions and of all teachings. The 
 personalist, when he hears the idea philosophically put, gets fright- 
 ened. At the same time, when he is preaching morality, he is preach- 
 ing the very same thing. He puts no, limit to the unselfishness of 
 man. Suppose a man becomes perfectly unselfish under the per- 
 sonalistic system, how are we to distinguish him from others in other 
 systems? He is one with the universe, and that is the goal, onlj- the 
 poor personalist dares not follow out his own premises to their right 
 conclUiSion. Karma Yoga is attaining this goal through unselfish 
 work, that freedom which is the goal of human nature. Every sel- 
 fish action, therefore, retards our reaching the goal, and every unsel- 
 fish action takes us towards the goal; that is wihy the only definition 
 that can be given of morality is this— that w^hich is selfish is im- 
 moral, and that which is unselfish is moral. 
 
 But, if you come to the details, you will find a difference. For in- 
 stance, environment will make the details different. The same ac- 
 tion under one set of circumstances will be unselfish, and under an- 
 other set will be selfish. So w^e can give only a general definition 
 and leave the details to be worked out by the difference in time, 
 place and circumstance. In one country one sort of behaviour will 
 be considered moral, and in another very immoral, because the cir- 
 cumstances differ. We find that the goal of all nature is freedom, 
 and that this freedom is only to be attained by perfect unselfishness, 
 and every action, thought, word or deed that is unselfish takes us 
 towards the goal and, as such, is called moral. That definition, you 
 will find, will hold good for every religion and every system of ethics. 
 For instance, you will find different ideas of ethics. In so^me sys- 
 tems they are derived from a superior Being, God. If you ask 
 why a man shall do this and ijot do that they will answer. Because it 
 is the command of God. But whatever be the source from which it is 
 derived, their code of ethics will have as the one central idea not 
 to think of self, to give up self. And yet some of 'them with this 
 high ethical idea are frightened to give up their little personalities. 
 
50 
 
 I would ask the man who would cling to the little persoualities to 
 consider the case of a man who has become perfectly unselfish, who 
 has no thought for himiself, who does no deed for himself, who speaks 
 no word for himself, then where is "himself?" That "himself" is 
 personal to him so long as he thinks, acts and knows for himself. 
 If he is only conscious of others, of the universe, where is himself? 
 It is gone forever. 
 
 This Karma Yoga, therefore, is a system to attain to freedom 
 through unselfishness, by good works. The Karma Yogi need not 
 have any doctrine whatever. He may not believe in a God, may not 
 ask what his soul is or think of any metaphysical speculation. He 
 has got his special task; he has got to work it out himself. Every 
 moment of Ms life must be realization, 'because he is working out, 
 without a doctrine or theory, the very same problem that t)he Gnani 
 or the worshipper speculates upon and formulates as doctrines. 
 
 Now comes the next question. What is this work? What is this 
 doing good to the world? Can w^e do good to the world? In an 
 absolute sense, no; in a relative sense, yes. No permanent good can 
 be done to this world; if it could be it would not be this world. We 
 can satisfy the hunger of a man for five minutes, and he will be 
 hungry again. Every pleasure with which we can supply a man can 
 only be momentary. No one can iDermanently cure this ever-recur- 
 ring series of pleasure and pain. Can any permanent mas^ of hap- 
 piness be given to the world? No, not even that. In the ocean 
 you cannot raise one wave without making a hollow somewhere else. 
 The sum total of the energies in the world is the same throughout, 
 always the same. It cannot be increased or decreased. Take the 
 history of the human race as we know it to-day. The same miseries 
 and the same happinesses, the same pleasure and pain, the same 
 differences in position; some rich, some poor, some high in position, 
 some low, some healthy, some unhealthy. You find it was just the 
 same with the ancient Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, as with 
 the Americans to-day. So far as history is known it has always been 
 the same; yet, at the same time, we find that, running along with all 
 these differences of pleasure and pain, there has ever been the strug- 
 gle to alleviate it. At every period of history there have been 
 thousands of men and women who have been struggling to smooth 
 the passage of life of others. And they have never succeeded. We 
 can only play at driving the ball from one place to another. We 
 take pain from the physical body, and it goes to the mental body. 
 It is like that picture in Dante's hell where the misers were given 
 a mass of gold. They began pushing it up the hill, and again it 
 rolled down. Thus this wheel is going on. All these talks about a 
 millennium are very nice as schoolt)oys' stories, ibut no better than 
 
51 
 
 that. All nations that dream of millenniutas also think that they 
 will have the best of it at that time; this is the wonderfully un- 
 selfisih idea of this millennium. 
 
 We come to this, that we cannot add happiness to this world; 
 similarly, we cannot add pain. The sum total of the energies dis- 
 played will he the same throug-hout. We just push it from this side 
 to the other side, and from that sid-e to this, but it will remain the 
 same, because it is its very nature. This ebb and flow, this rising 
 and falling, is its very nature; it would be as logical to say we 
 can have life without death. It is complete nonsense, because the 
 very idea of life is constant death. The lamp is constantly burning 
 out,'and that is its life. If you want life you will have to die evei*y 
 moment also. These are only different expressions for the same 
 thing, looked at from different standpoints; each of them is the fall- 
 ing and the rising of the same wave, and the two form one link. 
 One looks at the "fall" side and' becomes a pessimist or at the "rise" 
 side and becomes an optimist. When a boy is going to school and his 
 father and mother are taking care of him everything seems blessed 
 to him; his wants are simple; he is a great optimist. But the old 
 man, with his experience, lias become calmer, and he has cooled 
 down. So old nations, will decay all around them, are less hopeful 
 than new nations. There is a proverb in India, a thousand years a 
 city and athousand years a forest. This change is going on, and it 
 makes people optimists or pessimists according to the side they see. 
 
 The next idea w^e wall take up is the idea of equality. These mil- 
 lennium ideas have been great motive powers to work. Many religions 
 preacTi this as an element. God is coming to rule the universe; there 
 will be n^ difference in conditions. Tlie people who preach this are 
 fanatics, and fanatics are the sincerest of mankind. Christianity 
 was preached just on this fanaticism, and that was what made it at- 
 tractive to the Greek slaves and the Roman slaves. They believed 
 they Avould have no more slavery, plenty to eat and drink, and there- 
 fore they flocked round the standard. Those who preached the idea 
 first were, of course, ignorant fanatics, ibut very sincere. In modern 
 times it takes the form of equality— equality, liberty and fraternity. 
 This is also fanaticism. This equality has never been and never can 
 be. How could you be equal here? That would (be death. What 
 makes this world? Lost balance. In the primal state, -which is 
 called Chaos, there is perfect balance. How do all these forces come? 
 By struggling, competition, conflict. Suppose all these particles of 
 matter were held in equilibrium, would there be creation? We know 
 from science there would not be. Disturb the water, and you find 
 every particle of water ti-ying to become calm again, one rushing 
 against the other, and in this way come aU these phenomena which 
 
52 
 
 you call the universe— all things are struggling to get back to the 
 state of perfect balance. Then again a disturbance will come, and 
 this combination will go on, making creation. Inequality is the veiy 
 basis of creation. At the same time, the forces struggling to obtain 
 equality are as much a necessity of creation as those which de- 
 stroy it. 
 
 Absolute equality, that which means a perfect balance of all the 
 struggling forces, will never ibe in this world. Before you have at- 
 tained to that state the world will have cooled down and become a 
 lump of ice, and no one will be here. We find, therefore, that all 
 these ideas of millennium, or absolute equality, are not only impos- 
 sible, but, if we could carry them out, they would lead to the day of 
 destruction. There is, again, the difference in the brains of men. 
 What makes the difference between man and man? It is the differ- 
 ence in the brain. Nowadays no one but a lunatic will say we are all 
 born with the same brain power. We have come into the iworld as un- 
 equal; we have come as greater men or as le&ser men, and there is 
 no getting away from that. The Alneriican Indians were in this coun- 
 try for thousands of years, and a few handfuis of your ancestors 
 came. What made all the difference, if 'we are all the same? Why 
 could not the Indians have made improvements and built cities, why 
 did they not go about hunting in the forests all the time, if we are all 
 equal? A different sort of brain matter came, different bundles of 
 past impressions came, and they worked out and manifested them- 
 selves. Absolute non-differentiation is death. So long as this world 
 lasts, this differentiation will be, but the aniilennium will come, when 
 the cycle comes to an end. Before that equality cannot be. Yet this 
 idea is a great motive power. Just as this inequality is necessar^^ for 
 creation, so the struggle to limit it is necessary. If there were no 
 differentiation there would be no creation ; if there were no struggle 
 to become free and get back there would be no creation; but it is the 
 difference between the two forces that makes the motive power. 
 There will, therefore, always be these motive powers to work. 
 
 This wheel within Wheel is terrible mechanism; if we put our 
 hands in, as- soon as we are caught we are gone. Each one of us thinks 
 that when we have done a certain duty, we will be at rest, but before 
 we have done a part of that, another is waiting. We are all being 
 dragged along by this machine. There are only two ways; one is to 
 give up the machine, to let go, and stand aside.- Give up our desires. 
 That is very easy to say, but it is almost impossible to do. 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 Karma Yoga. Do not fly from them, but stand inside and 
 
53 
 
 know the- secret of work. Througli work we shall come out. Through 
 that machinery is the way out. 
 
 We have now seen what this work is. To sum up the whole thing, 
 this work goes on all the time, and those that believe in a God will 
 understand it better by thinking that God is not sijch an incapable 
 person as to require our help. Secondly, this universe will go on al- 
 ways. We must remember that our goal is( freedom; our goal is un- 
 selfishness, and that goal is to be reached through work, and, there- 
 fore, we must learn the setcret of work. So far we have learnt that 
 this work goes on; all such ideas as of making this world perfectly 
 happy may be good as motive powers, for fanatics; such silly ideas 
 may have been good in old times, but we must always know that, 
 although fanaticism is a very good motive power, and does some good 
 work, at the same time it brings as much evil as good. The Karma 
 Yogi asks why should you require any motive to work? Be beyond 
 motives. "To work you have the rigiht, but not to the fruits thereof." 
 Man can train himself to that, says the Karma Yogi. When the idea 
 of doing good will come into his very being, then he will not seek for 
 any motive outside. Why shall we do good? Because we like, and 
 ask no questions. Do good.because it is good to do good; he who does 
 good work in order to get to heaven binds himself, says the Karma 
 Yogi. Any work that is done with a motive, instead of making us 
 free, which is the goal, makes one more chain for our feet. If we 
 think by such and such work we shall get to heaven, we shall be at- 
 tracted to a place called heaven, and we shall have to go and see all 
 these things; that will be one more bondage. 
 
 So the only way is to give up all the fruits of work; be non- 
 attached. Know that this world is not we, or we this world; that we 
 are really not the body; that we really do not work. We are the 
 Self, eternally at rest and at peace. Why should we be bound by 
 anything? We must not weep; there is no weeping for the Soul. We 
 must not even weep for sym.pathy. Only, we like that sort of thing, 
 and, in our imagination, we think that God is weeping in that way on 
 His throne. Such a God would not be worth attaining. Why should 
 God weep at all? It is a sign of weakness, of bondage. There should 
 be not a drop of tears. How can it be done? It is very good to say 
 be perfectly non-attached, but what is the way to do it ? Every good 
 work we do without any ulterior motive, instead of forging a chain, 
 will break one of the links in our chain. Everj^ good thought that we 
 send to the world, without thinking of the return, will be stored up, 
 and break one link in the chain, and make us purer, until we become 
 the purest of mortals. Yet it seems to be rather quixotic and phil- 
 osophical, than practical. I have read many arguments against the 
 Ghita, and many have raised the argument that without motive you 
 
54 
 
 cannot work. They have never seen work, except fanaticism, and, 
 therefore, speak in that way. 
 
 I will tell you in a few words about one man who carried it into 
 practice. That man was Buddha. He is the one man who ever carried 
 this into perfect practice. All tiie prophets of the world, except 
 Buddha, had external motive power to move them. The prophets of 
 the world, Avith his exception, can be divided into two sets, one set 
 who say they are God come down on earth, and the other who say 
 they are messengers from God; and both draw their impetus from 
 outside, expect reward from outside, however spiritual may be the 
 language they use. But Buddha is the only prophet who said "I do 
 not care to know your various theories about God. What is the use 
 of discussing all the subtile doctrines about the soul? Do good and 
 be good. And this will take you to whatever truth there is." He was 
 absolutely without motive power, and what man worked more than 
 he? Show me in history one character whO' w^ent so high above all; 
 the whole human race has produced but one isuch character; such, 
 high philosophy; such sympathy; this great philosopher, preaching the 
 highest philosoph5% and yet having sympathy for the lowest animals, 
 and never making any claims. 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 of all others, 
 the greatest combination of heart and brain that ever existed, the 
 greatest soul-power that was ever manifested. He was the first great 
 reformer the w^orld ever saw. He w^as 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 fo 
 believe from your childhood, but reason it out, and after you have an- 
 alyzed it, then, if you find 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 w^ithout any motive power, neither for money nor 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 to transform the 
 world. This is the very ideal of Karma Yoga. 
 
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