The
grandest idea in the religion of the Vedanta is that we may reach the same
 |
| Swami Vivekananda |
goal
by different paths; and these paths I have generalized into four, viz those of
work, love, psychology, and knowledge. But you must, at the same time, remember
that these divisions are not very marked and quite exclusive of each other.
Each blends into the other. But according to the type which prevails, we name
the divisions. It is not that you can find men who have no other faculty than
that of work, nor that you can find men who are no more than devoted
worshipers only, nor that there are men who have no more than mere knowledge.
These divisions are made in accordance with the type or the tendency that may
be seen to prevail in a man. We have found that, in the end, all these four
paths converge and become one. All religions and all methods of work and
worship lead us to one and the same goal.
I
have already tried to point out that goal. It is freedom as I understand it.
Everything that we perceive around us is struggling towards freedom, from the
atom to the man, from the insentient, lifeless particle of matter to the
highest existence on earth, the human soul. The whole universe is in fact the
result of this struggle for freedom. In all combinations every particle is
trying to go on its own way, to fly from the other particles; but the others
are holding it in check. Our earth is trying to fly away from the sun, and the
moon from the earth. Everything has a tendency to infinite dispersion. All that
we see in the universe has for its basis this one struggle towards freedom; it
is under the impulse of this tendency that the saint prays and the robber robs.
When the line of action taken is not a proper one, we call it evil; and when
the manifestation of it is proper and high, we call it good. But the impulse is
the same, the struggle towards freedom. The saint is oppressed with the
knowledge of his condition of bondage, and he wants to get rid of it; so he
worships God. The thief is oppressed with the idea that he does not possess
certain things, and he tries to get rid of that want, to obtain freedom from
it; so he steals. Freedom is the one goal of all nature, sentient or
insentient; and consciously or unconsciously, everything is struggling towards
that goal. The freedom which the saint seeks is very different from that which
the robber seeks; the freedom loved by the saint leads him to the enjoyment of
infinite, unspeakable bliss, while that on which the robber has set his heart
only forges other bonds for his soul.
There
is to be found in every religion the manifestation of this struggle towards
freedom. It is the groundwork of all morality, of unselfishness, which means
getting rid of the idea that men are the same as their little body. When we see
a man doing good work, helping others, it means that he cannot be confined
within the limited circle of "me and mine". There is no limit to this
getting out of selfishness. All the great systems of ethics preach absolute
unselfishness as the goal. Supposing this absolute unselfishness can be reached
by a man, what becomes of him? He is no more the little Mr. So-and-so; he has
acquired infinite expansion. The little personality which he had before is now
lost to him for ever; he has become infinite, and the attainment of this
infinite expansion is indeed the goal of all religions and of all moral and
philosophical teachings. The personalist, when he hears this idea
philosophically put, gets frightened. At the same time, if he preaches
morality, he after all teaches the very same idea himself. He puts no limit to
the unselfishness of man. Suppose a man becomes perfectly unselfish under the
personalistic system, how are we to distinguish him from the perfected ones in
other system? He has become one with the universe and to become that is the
goal of all; only the poor personalist has not the courage to follow out his
own reasoning to its right conclusion. Karma-Yoga is the attaining through
unselfish work of that freedom which is the goal of all human nature. Every
selfish action, therefore, retards our reaching the goal, and every unselfish
action takes us towards the goal; that is why the only definition that can be
given of morality is this: That which is selfish is immoral, and that which is
unselfish is moral.
But,
if you come to details, the matter will not be seen to be quite so simple. For
instance, environment often makes the details different as I have already
mentioned. The same action under one set of circumstances may be unselfish, and
under another set quite selfish. So we can give only a general definition, and
leave the details to be worked out by taking into consideration the differences
in time, place, and circumstances. In one country one kind of conduct is
considered moral, and in another the very same is immoral, because the
circumstances differ. The goal of all nature is freedom, and freedom is to be
attained only by perfect unselfishness; every thought, word, or deed that is
unselfish takes us towards the goal, and, as such, is called moral. That
definition, you will find, holds good in every religion and every system of
ethics. In some systems of thought morality is derived from a Superior Being —
God. If you ask why a man ought to do this and not that, their answer is:
"Because such is the command of God." But whatever be the source from
which it is derived, their code of ethics also has the same central idea — not
to think of self but to give up self. And yet some persons, in spite of this
high ethical idea, are frightened at the thought of having to give up their
little personalities. We may ask the man who clings to the idea of little
personalities to consider the case of a person who has become perfectly
unselfish, who has no thought for himself, who does no deed for himself, who
speaks no word for himself, and then say where his "himself" is. That
"himself" is known to him only so long as he thinks, acts, or speaks
for himself. If he is only conscious of others, of the universe, and of the
all, where is his "himself"? It is gone for ever.
Karma-Yoga,
therefore, is a system of ethics and religion intended to attain freedom
through unselfishness, and by good works. The Karma-Yogi need not believe in
any doctrine whatever. He may not believe even in God, may not ask what his
soul is, nor think of any metaphysical speculation. He has got his own special
aim of realising selflessness; and he has to work it out himself. Every moment
of his life must be realisation, because he has to solve by mere work, without
the help of doctrine or theory, the very same problem to which the Jnâni
applies his reason and inspiration and the Bhakta his love.
Now
comes the next question: What is this work? What is this doing good to the
world? Can we do good to the world? In an absolute sense, no; in a relative
sense, yes. No permanent or everlasting good can be done to the world; if it
could be done, the world would not be this world. We may satisfy the hunger of
a man for five minutes, but he will be hungry again. Every pleasure with which
we supply a man may be seen to be momentary. No one can permanently cure this
ever-recurring fever of pleasure and pain. Can any permanent happiness be given
to the world? In the ocean we cannot raise a wave without causing a hollow
somewhere else. The sum total of the good things in the world has been the same
throughout in its relation to man's need and greed. It cannot be increased or
decreased. Take the history of the human race as we know it today. Do we not
find the same miseries and the same happiness, the same pleasures and pains,
the same differences in position? Are not some rich, some poor, some high, some
low, some healthy, some unhealthy? All this was just the same with the
Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans in ancient times as it is with the
Americans today. So far as history is known, it has always been the same; yet
at the same time we find that, running along with all these incurable
differences of pleasure and pain, there has ever been the struggle to alleviate
them. Every period of history has given birth to thousands of men and women who
have worked hard to smooth the passage of life for others. And how far have
they succeeded? We can only play at driving the ball from one place to another.
We take away pain from the physical plane, and it goes to the mental one. It is
like that picture in Dante's hell where the misers were given a mass of gold to
roll up a hill. Every time they rolled it up a little, it again rolled down.
All our talks about the millennium are very nice as school-boys' stories, but
they are no better than that. All nations that dream of the millennium also
think that, of all peoples in the world, they will have the best of it then for
themselves. This is the wonderfully unselfish idea of the millennium!
We
cannot add happiness to this world; similarly, we cannot add pain to it either.
The sum total of the energies of pleasure and pain displayed here on earth will
be the same throughout. We just push it from this side to the other side, and
from that side to this, but it will remain the same, because to remain so is
its very nature. This ebb and flow, this rising and falling, is in the world's
very nature; it would be as logical to hold otherwise as to say that we may
have life without death. This is complete nonsense, because the very idea of
life implies death and the very idea of pleasure implies pain. The lamp is
constantly burning out, and that is its life. If you want to have life, you
have to die every moment for it. Life and death are only different expressions
of the same thing looked at from different standpoints; they are the falling
and the rising of the same wave, and the two form one whole. One looks at the
"fall" side and becomes a pessimist another looks at the
"rise" side and becomes an optimist. When a boy is going to school
and his father and mother are taking care of him, everything seems blessed to
him; his wants are simple, he is a great optimist. But the old man, with his
varied experience, becomes calmer and is sure to have his warmth considerably
cooled down. So, old nations, with signs of decay all around them, are apt to
be less hopeful than new nations. There is a proverb in India: "A thousand
years a city, and a thousand years a forest." This change of city into
forest and vice versa is going on everywhere, and it makes people optimists or
pessimists according to the side they see of it.
The
next idea we take up is the idea of equality. These millennium ideas have been
great motive powers to work. Many religions preach this as an element in them —
that God is coming to rule the universe, and that then there will be no
difference at all in conditions. The people who preach this doctrine are mere
fanatics, and fanatics are indeed the sincerest of mankind. Christianity was
preached just on the basis of the fascination of this fanaticism, and that is
what made it so attractive to the Greek and the Roman slaves. They believed
that under the millennial religion there would be no more slavery, that there
would be plenty to eat and drink; and, therefore, they flocked round the
Christian standard. Those who preached the idea first were of course ignorant
fanatics, but very sincere. In modern times this millennial aspiration takes
the form of equality — of liberty, equality, and fraternity. This is also
fanaticism. True equality has never been and never can be on earth. How can we
all be equal here? This impossible kind of equality implies total death. What
makes this world what it is? Lost balance. In the primal state, which is called
chaos, there is perfect balance. How do all the formative forces of the
universe come then? By struggling, competition, conflict. Suppose that all the
particles of matter were held in equilibrium, would there be then any process
of creation? We know from science that it is impossible. Disturb a sheet of
water, and there you find every particle of the water trying to become calm
again, one rushing against the other; and in the same way all the phenomena
which we call the universe — all things therein — are struggling to get back to
the state of perfect balance. Again a disturbance comes, and again we have
combination and creation. Inequality is the very basis of creation. At the same
time the forces struggling to obtain equality are as much a necessity of
creation as those which destroy it.
Absolute
equality, that which means a perfect balance of all the struggling forces in
all the planes, can never be in this world. Before you attain that state, the
world will have become quite unfit for any kind of life, and no one will be
there. We find, therefore, that all these ideas of the millennium and of
absolute equality are not only impossible but also that, if we try to carry
them out, they will lead us surely enough to the day of destruction. What makes
the difference between man and man? It is largely the difference in the brain.
Nowadays no one but a lunatic will say that we are all born with the same brain
power. We come into the world with unequal endowments; we come as greater men
or as lesser men, and there is no getting away from that pre-natally determined
condition. The American Indians were in this country for thousands of years,
and a few handfuls of your ancestors came to their land. What difference they
have caused in the appearance of the country! Why did not the Indians make
improvements and build cities, if all were equal? With your ancestors a
different sort of brain power came into the land, different bundles of past
impressions came, and they worked out and manifested themselves. Absolute
non-differentiation is death. So long as this world lasts, differentiation
there will and must be, and the millennium of perfect equality will come only
when a cycle of creation comes to its end. Before that, equality cannot be. Yet
this idea of realising the millennium is a great motive power. Just as
inequality is necessary for creation itself, so the struggle to limit it is
also necessary. If there were no struggle to become free and get back to God,
there would be no creation either. It is the difference between these two
forces that determines the nature of the motives of men. There will always be
these motives to work, some tending towards bondage and others towards freedom.
This
world's wheel within wheel is a terrible mechanism; if we put our hands in it,
as soon as we are caught we are gone. We all think that when we have done a
certain duty, we shall be at rest; but before we have done a part of that duty,
another is already in waiting. We are all being dragged along by this mighty,
complex world-machine. There are only two ways out of it; one is to give up all
concerns with the machine, to let it go and stand aside, to give up our
desires. That is very easy to say, but is almost impossible to do. I do not
know whether in twenty millions of men one can do that. The other way is to
plunge into the world and learn the secret of work, and that is the way of
Karma-Yoga. Do not fly away from the wheels of the world-machine, but stand
inside it and learn the secret of work. Through proper work done inside, it is
also possible to come out. Through this machinery itself is the way out.
We
have now seen what work is. It is a part of natures foundation, and goes on
always. Those that believe in God understand this better, because they know
that God is not such an incapable being as will need our help. Although this
universe will go on always, our goal is freedom, our goal is unselfishness; and
according to Karma-Yoga, that goal is to be reached through work. All ideas of
making the world perfectly happy may be good as motive powers for fanatics; but
we must know that fanaticism brings forth as much evil as good. The Karma-Yogi
asks why you require any motive to work other than the inborn love of freedom.
Be beyond the common worldly motives. "To work you have the right, but not
to the fruits thereof." Man can train himself to know and to practice
that, says the Karma-Yogi. When the idea of doing good becomes a part of his
very being, then he will not seek for any motive outside. Let us do good
because it is good to do good; he who does good work even in order to get to
heaven binds himself down, says the Karma-Yogi. Any work that is done with any
the least selfish motive, instead of making us free, forges one more chain for
our feet.
So
the only way is to give up all the fruits of work, to be unattached to them.
Know that this world is not we, nor are we this world; that we are really not
the body; that we really do not work. We are the Self, eternally at rest and at
peace. Why should we be bound by anything? It is very good to say that we
should be perfectly non-attached, but what is the way to do it? Every good work
we do without any ulterior motive, instead of forging a new chain, will break
one of the links in the existing chains. Every good thought that we send to the
world without thinking of any return, will be stored up there and break one
link in the chain, and make us purer and purer, until we become the purest of
mortals. Yet all this may seem to be rather quixotic and too philosophical,
more theoretical than practical. I have read many arguments against the Bhagavad-Gita,
and many have said that without motives you cannot work. They have never seen
unselfish work except under the influence of fanaticism, and, therefore, they
speak in that way.
Let
me tell you in conclusion a few words about one man who actually carried
 |
| Lord Buddha |
this
teaching of Karma-Yoga into practice. That man is Buddha. He is the one man who
ever carried this into perfect practice. All the prophets of the world, except
Buddha, had external motives to move them to unselfish action. The prophets of
the world, with this single exception, may be divided into two sets, one set
holding that they are incarnations of God come down on earth, and the other
holding that they are only messengers from God; and both draw their impetus for
work from outside, expect reward from outside, however highly spiritual may be
the language they use. But Buddha is the only prophet who said, "I do not
care to know your various theories about God. What is the use of discussing all
the subtle doctrines about the soul? Do good and be good. And this will take
you to freedom and to whatever truth there is." He was, in the conduct of
his life, absolutely without personal motives; and what man worked more than
he? Show me in history one character who has soared so high above all. The whole
human race has produced but one such character, such high philosophy, such wide
sympathy. This great philosopher, preaching the highest philosophy, yet had the
deepest sympathy for the lowest of animals, and never put forth any claims for
himself. He is the ideal Karma-Yogi, acting entirely without motive, and the
history of humanity shows him to have been the greatest man ever born; beyond
compare the greatest combination of heart and brain that ever existed, the
greatest soul-power that has even been manifested. He is the first great
reformer the world has seen. He was the first who dared to say, "Believe
not because some old manuscripts are produced, believe not because it is your
national belief, because you have been made to believe it from your childhood;
but reason it all out, and after you have analysed it, then, if you find that
it will do good to one and all, believe it, live up to it, and help others to
live up to it." He works best who works without any motive, neither for
money, nor for fame, nor for anything else; and when a man can do that, he will
be a Buddha, and out of him will come the power to work in such a manner as
will transform the world. This man represents the very highest ideal of
Karma-Yoga.
SOURCE: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda;
Volume-1; Chapter-VIII
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