Karma Yoga: The Yoga of action (art of living)

by Vivekananda

"To work we have the right, but not to the fruits thereof." Leave the fruits alone. Why care for results? If you wish to help a man, never think what that man's attitude should be towards you. If you want to do a great or a good work, do not trouble to think what the result will be.

The ideal man is he who, in the midst of the greatest silence and solitude, finds the intensest activity, and in the midst of the intensest

activity finds the silence and solitude of the desert.

Our duty is to encourage every one in his struggle to live up to his own highest ideal, and strive at the same time to make the ideal as near as possible to the truth.

Before parents one must not utter jokes, must not show restlessness, must not show anger or temper. Before mother or father, a child must bow down low, and stand up in their presence, and must not take a seat until they order him to sit.

If the householder has food and drink and clothes without first seeing that his mother and his father, his children, his wife, and the poor, are supplied, he is committing a sin.

He who thinks of another woman besides his wife, if he touches her even with his mind--that man goes to dark hell.

Having sufficient means, if the householder does not take care to give to his relatives and to the poor, know him to be only a brute; his is not a human being.

He must not talk in public of his own fame;

for the householder who struggles to become rich by good means and for good purposes is doing practically the same thing for the attainment of salvation as the anchorite does in his cell when he is praying; for in them we see only the different aspects of the same virtue of self-surrender and self-sacrifice prompted by the feeling of devotion to God and to all that is His.

"if the householder dies in battle, fighting for his country or his religion, he comes to the same goal as the Yogi by meditation," showing thereby that what is duty for one is not duty for another.

Fear is a sign of weakness. A man must go about his duties without taking notice of the sneers and the ridicule of the world.

so helping man spiritually is the highest help that can be given to him.

We cannot do any work which will not do some good somewhere; there cannot be any work which will not cause some harm somewhere.

Discussion required

if we do not attach ourselves to the work we do, it will not have any binding effect on our soul.

Thus alone will character be established, then alone a man gets to truth. Such a man is safe for ever; he cannot do any evil. You may place him in any company, there will be no danger for him. There is a still higher state than having this good tendency, and that is the desire for liberation.

is subdued and held in control in a corner of the mind; but after that, the good tendencies have also to be conquered.

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The very reason of nature's existence is for the education of the soul; it has no other meaning; it is there because the soul must have knowledge, and through knowledge free itself.

as soon as this attachment comes, there is the deep impression on the soul, which binds us down and makes us work not from freedom but like slaves.

love never comes until there is freedom.

existence, real knowledge, and real love are eternally connected with one another,

Attachment comes only where we expect a return.

to be good, we have all to be merciful. Even

Never vaunt of your gifts to the poor or expect their gratitude, but rather be grateful to them for giving you the occasion of practising charity to them.

"Do not injure any being; not injuring any being is virtue, injuring any being is sin."

Duty is sweet only through love, and love shines in freedom alone.

"no duty is ugly, no duty is impure.

Discussion required

"Let the end and the means be joined into one."

The young have life before them; the old complain their day is gone; hundreds of desires, which they cannot fulfil struggle in their hearts. Both are foolish nevertheless.

Do not stand on a high pedestal and take five cents in your hand and say, "Here, my poor man," but be grateful that the poor man is there, so that by making a gift to him you are able to help yourself.

It is not the receiver that is blessed, but it is the giver. Be thankful that you are allowed to exercise your power of benevolence and mercy in the world, and thus become pure and perfect.

No beggar whom we have helped has ever owed a single cent to us; we owe everything to him, because he has allowed us to exercise our charity on him.

To recapitulate the chief points in today's lecture: First, we have to bear in mind that we are all

But what follows from it? That, howsoever we may try, there cannot be any action which is perfectly pure, or any which is perfectly impure, taking purity and impurity in the sense of injury and non-injury.

discussion requred

Here are two Sanskrit words. The one is Pravritti, which means revolving towards, and the other is Nivritti, which means revolving away.

To come back to one of our main points, we say that we cannot do good without at the same time doing some evil, or do evil without doing some good.

DR

"Even if he kill the whole universe (or be himself killed), he is neither the killer nor the killed, when he knows that he is not acting for himself at all."

"Do not give up the world; live in the world, imbibe its influences as much as you can; but if it be for your own enjoyment's sake, work not at all."

Foolish parents teach their children to pray, "O Lord, Thou hast created this sun for me and this moon for me," as if the Lord has had nothing else to do than to create everything for these babies.

Thus the man that has practised control over himself cannot be acted upon by anything outside; there is no more slavery for him. His mind has become free. Such a man alone is fit to live well in the world.

The external teacher offers only the suggestion which rouses the internal teacher to work to understand things.

First it is feeling, then it becomes willing, and out of that willing comes the tremendous force for work that will go through every vein and nerve and muscle, until the whole mass of your body is changed into an instrument of the unselfish Yoga of work, and the desired result of perfect self-abnegation and utter unselfishness is duly attained.

"Fools alone say that work and philosophy are different, not the learned." The learned know that, though apparently different from each other, they at last lead to the same goal of human perfection.

According to them, all our ideas of law are due to association. A series of phenomena becomes associated with things in our mind in a sort of invariable order, so that whatever we perceive at any time is immediately referred to other facts in the mind. Any one idea or, according to our psychology, any one wave that is produced in the mind-stuff, Chitta, must always give rise to many similar waves. This is the psychological idea of association, and causation is only as aspect of this grand pervasive principle of association.

I didn't understand this philosophical para.

One is called the "Neti, Neti" (not this, not this), the other is called "iti" (this); the former is the negative, and the latter is the positive way.

This line contains immense wisdom. After reading this book I realize how the latter way is also a way. Earlier I used to think only neti neti is the way which is very difficult.

Every act of selfishness or thought of selfishness makes us attached to something, and immediately we are made slaves.

"In search of wealth in this world, Thou art the only wealth I have found; I sacrifice myself unto Thee. In search of some one to be loved, Thou art the only one beloved I have found; I sacrifice myself unto Thee."

What is duty after all? It is really the impulsion of the flesh, of our attachment; and when an attachment has become established, we call it duty. For instance, in countries where there is no marriage, there is no duty between husband and wife; when marriage comes, husband and wife live together on account of attachment; and that kind of living together becomes settled after generations; and when it becomes so settled, it becomes a duty. It is, so to say, a sort of chronic disease. When it is acute, we call it disease; when it is chronic, we call it nature. It is a disease. So when attachment becomes chronic, we baptise it with the high-sounding name of duty.

Duty earlier vs here?

The Buddhas and the Christs that we know are but second-rate heroes in comparison with the greatest men of whom the world knows nothing.

When our nature has yet some impurities left in it, then alone can we work. It is in the nature of work to be impelled ordinarily by motive and by attachment.