Karma and It's Effect On Character

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knowledge. That is the one ideal placed before us by Eastern philosophy.

Pleasure is not the goal of man, but knowledge. Pleasure and happiness come to

an end. It is a mistake 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 to strive for. 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, and that he learns as much from evil as from good. As pleasure and

pain pass before his soul they have upon it different pictures, and the result

of these combined impressions is what is called man 's "character". If you take

the character of any man, it really is but the aggregate of tendencies, the sum

total of the bent of his mind; you will find that misery and happiness are

equal factors in the formation of that character. Good and evil have an equal

share in molding character, and

in some instances misery is a greater teacher than happiness. In studying the

great characters the world has produced, I dare say, in the vast majority of

cases, it would be found that it was misery that taught more than happiness, it

was poverty that taught more than wealth, it was blows that brought out their

inner fire more than praise. Now this knowledge, again, is inherent in man.

No knowledge comes from outside; it is all inside. What we say a man "knows",

should, in strict psychological language, be what he "discovers" or "unveils";

what a man "learns" is really what he "discovers", by taking the cover off his

own soul, which is a mine of

infinite knowledge. We say Newton discovered gravitation. 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 an

apple gave the suggestion to Newton, and he studied his own mind. He rearranged

all the previous links of thought in his mind and discovered a new link among

them, which we call the law of gravitation. It was neither in the apple nor in

anything in the center of the earth.

0pt">All knowledge, therefore, 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 this process of uncovering. 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 all knowing,

omniscient. There have been omniscient men, and, I believe, there will be yet;

and that there will be myriads of them in the cycles to come. Like fire in a

piece of flint, knowledge exists in the mind; suggestion is the friction, which

brings it out. So with all our feelings and actions

our tears an d our smiles, our joys and our griefs, our weeping and our

laughter, our curses and our blessings, our praises and our blames every one of

these we may find, if we calmly study our own selves, to have been brought out

from within ourselves by so many blows. The result is what we are. All these

blows taken together are called Karma work, action. Every mental and

physical blow that is given to the soul, by which, as it were, fire is struck

from it, and by which its own power and knowledge are discovered, is Karma,

this word being used in its widest sense. Thus we are all 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.

Everything we do, physical or mental, is Karma, and it leaves its marks on us.

There are certain works, which are, as it were, the aggregate, the sum total,

of a large number of smaller 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 composed of millions and millions of minute

waves. Each one of these is making a noise, and yet we do not catch it; it is

only when they become the big aggregate that we hear. Similarly, every

pulsation of the heart is work. Certain kinds of work we feel and they become

tangible to us; they are, at the same time, the aggregate of a number of small

works. If you really want to judge of the character of a man, look not at his

great performances. Every fool may become a hero at one time or another. Watch

a man do his most common actions; those are in deed the things, which will tell

you the real character of a great man. Great occasions

rouse even the lowest of human beings to some kind of greatness, but he alone is

the really great man whose character is great always, the same wherever he be.

Karma in its effect on character is the most tremendous power than man has to

deal with. Man is, as it were, a center, and is attracting all the powers of

the universe towards himself, and in this center is fusing them all and again

sending them off in a big current. Such a center is the real man the almighty,

the omniscient and he draws the whole universe towards him. Good and bad,

misery and happiness, all are running towards him and clinging round him; and

out of them he fashions the mighty stream of tendency called character and

throws it outwards. As he has the power of drawing in anything, so has he the

power

of throwing it out. All the actions that we see in the world, 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. Machines or instruments,

cities, ships, or men of war, all these are simply the manifestation of the

will of man; and this will is caused by character, and character is

manufactured by Karma. As is Karma, so is the manifestation of the will. The

men of mighty will the world has produced have all been tremendous workers

gigantic souls, with wills powerful enough to overturn worlds, wills they got

by persistent work, through ages, and ages. Such a gigantic will as that of a

Buddha or a Jesus could not be obtained in one life, for we know whom 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 had gone; millions are still living.

Millions and millions of petty kings like Buddha's father had been in the

world. If it was only a case of hereditary transmission, how do you account for

this petty prince, who was not, perhaps, obeyed by his own servants, producing

this son, whom half a world worships? How do you explain the gulf between the

carpenter and his son, whom millions of human beings worship as God? It cannot

be solved by the theory of heredity. The gigantic will which Buddha and Jesus

threw over the world, whence did it come? Whence came this accumulation of

power? It must have been there through ages and ages, continually growing

bigger and bigger, until it burst on society in a Buddha or a Jesus, even

rolling down to the present day. All this is determined by Karma, work. No one

can get anything unless he earns it. This is an eternal law.

We may sometimes think it is not so, but in the long run we become convinced of

it. A man may struggle all his life for riches; he may cheat thousands, but he

finds at last that he did not deserve to become rich, and his life becomes a

trouble and a nuisance to him. We may go on accumulating things for our

physical enjoyment, but only what we earn is really ours. A fool may buy all

the books in the world, and they will be in his library; but he will be able to

read only those that he deserves to; and this deserving is produced by Karma.

Our Karma determines what we deserve and what we can assimilate. We are

responsible for what we are; and what ever we wish ourselves to be, we have the

power to make ourselves. If what we are now has been the result of our own past

actions, it certainly follows that whatever we wish to be in future can be

produced by our present actions; so we have to know how to act. You will say,

"What is the use of learning how to work? Everyone

works in some way or other in this world." But there is such a thing as

frittering away our energies. With regard to Karma Yoga, the Gita says that it

is doing work with cleverness and as a science; by knowing how to work, one can

obtain the greatest results. You must remember that all 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, so is knowing; the different works are like blows to

bring them out, to cause these giants to wake up. Man works with various

motives. There cannot be work without motive. Some people want to get fame, and

they work for fame. Others want money, and they work for money. Others want to

have power, and they work for power. Others

want to get to heaven, an d they work for the same. Others want to leave a name

when they die, as they do in China, where no man gets a title until he is dead;

and that is a better way, after all, than with us. When a man does something

very good there, they give a title of nobility to his father, who is dead, or

to his grandfather. Some people work for that. Some of the followers of certain

Mohammedan sects work all their lives to have a big tomb built for them when

they die. I know sects among whom, as soon as a child is born, a tomb is

prepared for it; that is among them the most important work a man has to do,

and the bigger and the 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 obtain from them a

passport to heaven. They think that this kind of beneficence will clear them and

they will go scot free in spite of their

sinfulness. Such are some of the various motives for work. Work for work's

sake. There are some 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 even to go to

heaven. They work just because good will come of it. There are others who do

good to the poor and help mankind from still higher motives, because they

believe in doing good and love good. The motive for name and fame seldom brings

immediate results, as a rule; they come to us when we are old and have almost

done with life. If a man works without any selfish motive in view, does he not

gain anything? Yes, he gains the highest. Unselfishness is more paying, only

people have not the patience to

practice it. It is more paying from the point of view of health also. Love,

truth and unselfishness are not merely moral figures of speech, but they form

our highest ideal, because in them lies such a manifestation of power. In the

first place, a man who can work for five days, or even for five minutes,

without any selfish motive whatever, without thin king of future, of heaven, of

punishment, or anything of the kind, has in him the capacity to become a

powerful moral giant. It is hard to do it, but in the heart of our hearts we

know its value, and the good it brings. It is the greatest manifestation o f

power this tremendous restraint; self-restraint is a manifestation of greater

power than all outgoing action. A carriage with four horses may rush down a

hill unrestrained, or the coachman may curb the horses. Which is the greater

manifestation of power, to let them go or to hold them? A cannon ball flying

through the air goes a long

distance and falls. Another is cut short in its flight by striking against a

wall, and the impact generates intense heat. All outgoing energy following a

selfish motive is frittered away; it will not cause power to return to you; but

if restrained, it will result in development of power. This self-control will

tend to produce a mighty will, a character that makes a Christ or a Buddha.

Foolish men do not know this secret; they nevertheless want to rule mankind.

Even a fool may rule the whole world if he works and waits. Let him wait a few

years, restrain that foolish idea of governing; and when that idea is wholly

gone, he will be a power in the world. The majority of us cannot see beyond a

few years, just as some 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. This is our weakness, our powerlessness. Even the

lowest forms of work are not to be despised. Let the man, who knows no better,

work for selfish ends, for name and fame; but everyone should always try to get

towards higher and higher motives and to understand them. "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. There arises a difficult question in this

ideal of work. Intense activity is

necessary; we must always work. We cannot live a minute without work. What then

becomes of rest? Here is one side of the life struggle work, in which we are

whirled rapidly round. And here is the other that of calm, retiring

renunciation: everything is peaceful around, there is very little of noise and

show, only nature with her animals and flowers and mountains. Neither of them

is a perfect picture. A man used to solitude, if brought in contact with the

surging whirlpool of the world, will be crushed by it; just as the fish that

lives in the deep sea water, as soon as it is brought to the surface, breaks

into pieces, deprived of the weight of water on it that had kept it t ogether.

Can a man who has been used to the turmoil and the rush of life live at ease if

he comes to a quiet place? He suffers and perchance may lose his mind. The ideal

man is he

who, in the midst of the greatest silence and solitude, finds the most intense

activity, and in the midst of the intensest activity finds the silence and

solitude of the desert. He has learnt the secret of restraint, he has

controlled himself. He goes through the streets of a big city with all its

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

Karma Yoga, and if you have attained to that you have really learnt 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

prompts us; and, almost without exception, in the first years, we shall find

that our motives are always selfish; but gradually this selfishness will melt

by persistence, till at last will come the time when we shall be able to do

really unselfish work. We may all hope that some day or other, as we struggle

through the paths of life, there will come a time when we shall become

perfectly unselfish; and the moment we attain to that, all our powers will be

concentrated, and the knowledge which is ours will be manifest.

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