THE IDEAL OF KARMA-YOGA
-Swami Vivekananda
T.S.Prem Kumar, Madurai
The grandest idea in the religion of the Vedanta is that we may
reach the same goal by different paths; and these paths I have generalised into
four, viz those of work, love, psychology,
and knowledge. But you must, at the same time, remember that these divisions
are not very marked and quite exclusive of each other. Each blends into the
other. But according to the type which prevails, we name the divisions. It is
not that you can find men who have no other faculty than that of work, nor that
you can find men who are no more than devoted worshippers only, nor that there
are men who have no more than mere knowledge. These divisions are made in
accordance with the type or the tendency that may be seen to prevail in a man.
We have found that, in the end, all these four paths converge and become one. All religions and all methods of work and worship lead us to one
and the same goal.
I have already tried to point out that goal. It is freedom as I
understand it. Everything that we perceive
around us is struggling towards freedom, from the atom to the man, from the
insentient, lifeless particle of matter to the highest existence on earth, the
human soul. The whole universe is in
fact the result of this struggle for freedom. In all combinations every particle is
trying to go on its own way, to fly from the other particles; but the others
are holding it in check. Our earth is trying to fly away from the sun, and the
moon from the earth. Everything has a tendency to infinite dispersion. All that
we see in the universe has for its basis this one struggle towards freedom; it
is under the impulse of this tendency that the saint prays and the robber robs.
When the line of action taken is not a proper one, we call it evil; and when the
manifestation of it is proper and high, we call it good. But the impulse is the
same, the struggle towards freedom. The saint is oppressed with the knowledge
of his condition of bondage, and he wants to get rid of it; so he worships God.
The thief is oppressed with the idea that he does not possess certain things,
and he tries to get rid of that want, to obtain freedom from it; so he steals. Freedom is the one goal of all nature, sentient or insentient;
and consciously or unconsciously, everything is struggling towards that goal.
The freedom which the saint seeks is very different from that which the robber
seeks; the freedom loved by the saint leads him to the enjoyment of infinite,
unspeakable bliss, while that on which the robber has set his heart only forges
other bonds for his soul.
There is to be found in every religion the manifestation of this
struggle towards freedom. It is the groundwork of all morality, of
unselfishness, which means getting rid of the idea that men are the same as
their little body. When we see a man doing good work, helping others, it means
that he cannot be confined within the limited circle of "me and
mine". There is no limit to this
getting out of selfishness. All the great systems of
ethics preach absolute unselfishness as the goal. Supposing this absolute
unselfishness can be reached by a man, what becomes of him? He is no more the
little Mr. So-and-so; he has acquired infinite expansion. The little
personality which he had before is now lost to him for ever; he has become infinite,
and the attainment of this infinite expansion is indeed the goal of all
religions and of all moral and philosophical teachings. The personalist, when
he hears this idea philosophically put, gets frightened. At the same time, if
he preaches morality, he after all teaches the very same idea himself. He puts
no limit to the unselfishness of man. Suppose a man becomes perfectly unselfish
under the personalistic system, how are we to distinguish him from the
perfected ones in other system? He has become one with the universe and to
become that is the goal of all; only the poor personalist has not the courage
to follow out his own reasoning to its right conclusion. Karma-Yoga is the attaining through unselfish work of that freedom
which is the goal of all human nature. Every selfish action,
therefore, retards ( jlq;fy; ) 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 ( Md;k rpe;jid ) 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
( Rgpf;~k; ) 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
The next idea we take up is the idea of equality. These
millennium ideas ( Rgpf;~ Nehf;fk; ) 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 ( Gj;jpRthjPdkw;wth; ) 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 ( %o;Fjy; ) 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 ( ituhf;fpak; ); but we must know that fanaticism brings forth as much evil as good. The Karma-Yogi asks why
you require any motive to work other than the inborn love of freedom. Be beyond
the common worldly motives. "To work you have the right, but
not to the fruits thereof." Man can train himself to know and to practice that, says the
Karma-Yogi. When the idea of doing good
becomes a part of his very being, then he will not seek for any motive outside. Let us do good because it is good to do good; he who does good work
even in order to get to heaven binds himself down, says the Karma-Yogi. Any work that is done with any the least selfish motive, instead
of making us free, forges one more chain for our feet.
So the only
way is to give up all the fruits of work, to be unattached to them. Know that this world is
not we, nor are we this world; that we are really not the body; that we really
do not work. We are the Self, eternally at rest and at peace. Why should we be
bound by anything? It is very good to say that we should be perfectly
non-attached, but what is the way to do it? Every good
work we do without any ulterior motive, instead of forging a new chain, will
break one of the links in the existing chains. Every good thought that we send
to the world without thinking of any return, will be stored up there and break
one link in the chain, and make us purer and purer, until we become the purest
of mortals.
Yet all this may seem to be rather quixotic and too philosophical, more
theoretical than practical. I have read many arguments against the
Bhagavad-Gita, and many have said that without motives you cannot work. They
have never seen unselfish work except under the influence of fanaticism, and,
therefore, they speak in that way.
Let me tell you in conclusion a few words about one man who
actually carried this teaching of Karma-Yoga into practice. That man is Buddha. He is the one man who
ever carried this into perfect practice. All the prophets of the world, except
Buddha, had external motives to move them to unselfish action. The prophets of
the world, with this single exception, may be divided into two sets, one set
holding that they are incarnations of God come down on earth, and the other
holding that they are only messengers from God; and both draw their impetus ( ,af;Fk;
rf;jp ) 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.
ARTICLE RECEIVED FROM
--
- T.S.Prem Kumar, Madurai
- T.S.Prem Kumar, Madurai
“Work unselfishly. Feel that you are only an instrument and that the Lord is working through you."-
Swami Sivananda
THANK YOU
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