Karma in its effect on character

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KARMA IN ITS EFFECT ON CHARACTER

 

Swami Vivekananda

 

THE word Karma is derived from the Sanskrit Kri, to do; all action 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 Karma-Yoga we have simply to

do with the word Karma as meaning work. The goal of mankind is

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 leave 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 not in the apple nor in anything

in the center of the earth. 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 and 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 indeed 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 that

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 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 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

whatever 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 knowledge; 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, and 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

practise 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 thinking 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 of 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 which 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 together. 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

intensest 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.