Non-attachment is complete self-abnegation

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NON-ATTACHMENT IS COMPLETE SELF-ABNEGATION

 

Swami Vivekananda

 

Just as every action that emanates from us comes back to us as

reaction, even so our actions may act on other people and theirs on

us. Perhaps all of you have observed it as a fact that when persons

do evil actions, they become more and more evil, and when they begin

to do good, they become stronger and stronger and learn to do good at

all times. This intensification of the influence of action cannot be

explained on any other ground than that we can act and react upon

each other. To take an illustration from physical science, when I am

doing a certain action, my mind may be said to be in a certain state

of vibration; all minds which are in similar circumstances will have

the tendency to be affected by my mind. If there are different

musical instruments tuned alike in one room, all of you may have

noticed that when one is struck, the others have the tendency to

vibrate so as to give the same note. So all minds that have the same

tension, so to say, will be equally affected by the same thought. Of

course, this influence of thought on mind will vary according to

distance and other causes, but the mind is always open to affection.

Suppose I am doing an evil act, my mind is in a certain state of

vibration, and all minds in the universe, which are in a similar

state, have the possibility of being affected by the vibration of my

mind. So, when I am doing a good action, my mind is in another state

of vibration; and all minds similarly strung have the possibility of

being affected by my mind; and this power of mind upon mind is more

or less according as the force of the tension is greater or less.

 

Following this simile further, it is quite possible that, just as

light waves may travel for millions of years before they reach any

object, so thought waves may also travel hundreds of years before

they meet an object with which they vibrate in unison. It is quite

possible, therefore, that this atmosphere of ours is full of such

thought pulsations, both good and evil. Every thought projected from

every brain goes on pulsating, as it were, until it meets a fit

object that will receive it. Any mind which is open to receive some

of these impulses will take them immediately. So, when a man is doing

evil actions, he has brought his mind to a certain state of tension

and all the waves which correspond to that state of tension, and

which may be said to be already in the atmosphere, will struggle to

enter into his mind. That is why an evil-doer generally goes on doing

more and more evil. His actions become intensified. Such, also will

be the case with the doer of good; he will open himself to all the

good waves that are in the atmosphere, and his good actions also will

become intensified. We run, therefore, a twofold danger in doing

evil: first, we open ourselves to all the evil influences surrounding

us; secondly, we create evil which affects others, may be hundreds of

years hence. In doing evil we injure ourselves and others also. In

doing good we do good to ourselves and to others as well; and, like

all other forces in man, these forces of good and evil also gather

strength from outside.

 

According to Karma-Yoga, the action one has done cannot be destroyed

until it has borne its fruit; no power in nature can stop it from

yielding its results. If I do an evil action, I must suffer for it;

there is no power in this universe to stop or stay it. Similarly, if

I do a good action, there is no power in the universe which can stop

its bearing good results. The cause must have its effect; nothing can

prevent or restrain this. Now comes a very fine and serious question

about Karma-Yoga--namely, that these actions of ours, both good and

evil, are intimately connected with each other. We cannot put a line

of demarcation and say, this action is entirely good and this

entirely evil. There is no action which does not bear good and evil

fruits at the same time. To take the nearest example: I am talking to

you, and some of you, perhaps, think I am doing good; and at the same

time I am, perhaps, killing thousands of microbes in the atmosphere;

I am thus doing evil to something else. When it is very near to us

and affects those we know, we say that it is very good action if it

affects them in a good manner. For instance, you may call my speaking

to you very good, but the microbes will not; the microbes you do not

see, but yourselves you do see. The way in which my talk affects you

is obvious to you, but how it affects the microbes is not so obvious.

And so, if we analyse our evil actions also, we may find that some

good possibly results from them somewhere. He who in good action sees

that there is something evil in it, and in the midst of evil sees

that there is something good in it somewhere, has known the secret of

work.

 

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. We

cannot breathe or live without injuring others, and every bit of the

food we eat is taken away from another's mouth. Our very lives are

crowding out other lives. It may be men, or animals, or small

microbes, but some one or other of these we have to crowd out. That

being the case, it naturally follows that perfection can never be

attained by work. We may work through all eternity, but there will be

no way out of this intricate maze. You may work on, and on, and on;

there will be no end to this inevitable association of good and evil

in the results of work.

 

The second point to consider is, what is the end of work? We find the

vast majority of people in every country believing that there will be

a time when this world will become perfect, when there will be no

disease, nor death, nor unhappiness, nor wickedness. That is a very

good idea, a very good motive power to inspire and uplift the

ignorant; but if we think for a moment, we shall find on the very

face of it that it cannot be so. How can it be, seeing that good and

evil are the obverse and reverse of the same coin? How can you have

good without evil at the same time? What is meant by perfection? A

perfect life is a contradiction in terms. Life itself is a state of

continuous struggle between ourselves and everything outside. Every

moment we are fighting actually with external nature, and if we are

defeated, our life has to go. It is, for instance, a continuous

struggle for food and air. If food or air fails, we die. Life is not

a simple and smoothly flowing thing, but it is a compound effect.

This complex struggle between something inside and the external world

is what we call life. So it is clear that when this struggle ceases,

there will be an end of life.

 

What is meant by ideal happiness is the cessation of this struggle.

But then life will cease, for the struggle can only cease when life

itself has ceased. We have seen already that in helping the world we

help ourselves. The main effect of work done for others is to purify

ourselves. By means of the constant effort to do good to others we

are trying to forget ourselves; this forgetfulness of self is the one

great lesson we have to learn in life. Man thinks foolishly that he

can make himself happy, and after years of struggle finds out at last

that true happiness consists in killing selfishness and that no one

can make him happy except himself. Every act of charity, every

thought of sympathy, every action of help, every good deed, is taking

so much of self-importance away from our little selves and making us

think of ourselves as the lowest and the least, and, therefore, it is

all good. Here we find that Jnana, Bhakti, and Karma--all come to one

point. The highest ideal is feternal and entire self-abnegation,

where there is no " I " , but all is " Thou " ; and whether he is conscious

or unconscious of it, Karma-Yoga leads man to that end. A religious

preacher may become horrified at the idea of an Impersonal God; he

may insist on a Personal God and wish to keep up his own identity and

individuality, whatever he may mean by that. But his ideas of ethics,

if they are really good, cannot but be based on the highest self-

abnegation. It is the basis of all morality; you may extend it to

men, or animals, or angels, it is the one basic idea, the one

fundamental principle running through all ethical systems.

 

You will find various classes of men in this world. First, there are

the God-men, whose self-abnegation is complete, and who do only good

to others even at the sacrifice of their own lives. These are the

highest of men. If there are a hundred of such in any country, that

country need never despair. But they are unfortunately too few. Then

there are the good men who do good to others so long as it does not

injure themselves. And there is a third class who, to do good to

themselves, injure others. It is said by a Sanskrit poet that there

is a fourth unnamable class of people who injure others merely for

injury's sake. Just as there are at one pole of existence the highest

good men, who do good for the sake of doing good, so, at the other

pole, there are others who injure others just for the sake of the

injury. They do not gain anything thereby, but it is their nature to

do evil.

 

Here are two Sanskrit words. The one is Pravritti, which means

revolving towards, and the other is Nivritti, which means revolving

away. The " revolving towards " is what we call the world, the " I and

mine " ; it includes all those things which are always enriching

that " me " by wealth and money and power, and name and fame, and which

are of a grasping nature, always tending to accumulate everything in

one centre,that centre being " myself " . That is the Pravritti, the

natural tendency of every human being; taking everything from

everywhere and heaping it around one centre, that centre being man's

own sweet self. When this tendency begins to break, when it is

Nivritti or " going away from, " then begin morality and religion. Both

Pravritti and Nivritti are of the nature of work: the former is evil

work, and the latter is good work. This Nivritti is the fundamental

basis of all morality and all religion, and the very perfection of it

is entire self-abnegation, readiness to sacrifice mind and body and

everything for another being. When a man has reached that state, he

has attained to the perfection of Karma-Yoga. This is the highest

result of good works. Although a man has not studied a single system

of philosophy, although he does not believe in any God, and never has

believed, although he has not prayed even once in his whole life, if

the simple power of good actions has brought him to that state where

he is ready to give up his life and all else for others, he has

arrived at the same point to which the religious man will come

through his prayers and the philosopher through his knowledge; and so

you may find that the philosopher, the worker, and the devotee, all

meet at one point, that one point being self-abnegation. However much

their systems of philosophy and religion may differ, all mankind

stand in reverence and awe before the man who is ready to sacrifice

himself for others. Here, it is not at all any question of creed, or

doctrine- even men who are very much opposed to all religious ideas,

when they see one of these acts of complete self-sacrifice, feel that

they must revere it. Have you not seen even a most bigoted Christian,

when he reads Edwin Arnold's Light of Asia, stand in reverence of

Buddha, who preached no God, preached nothing but self-sacrifice? The

only thing is that the bigot does not know that his own end and aim

in life is exactly the same as that of those from whom he differs.

The worshipper, by keeping constantly before him the idea of God and

a surrounding of good, comes to the same point at last and says, " Thy

will be done, " and keeps nothing to himself. That is self-abnegation.

The philosopher, with his knowledge, sees that the seeming self is a

delusion and easily gives it up. It is self-abnegation. So Karma,

Bhakti, and Jnana all meet here; and this is what was meant by all

the great preachers of ancient times, when they taught that God is

not the world. There is one thing which is the world and another

which is God; and this distinction is very true. What they mean by

world is selfishness. Unselfishness is God. One may live on a throne,

in a golden palace, and be perfectly unselfish; and then he is in

God. Another may live in a hut and wear rags, and have nothing in the

world; yet, if he is selfish, he is intensely merged in the world.

 

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. Knowing this, how can we work? There have, therefore, been

sects in this world who have in an astoundingly preposterous way

preached slow suicide as the only means to get out of the world,

because if a man lives, he has to kill poor little animals and plants

or do injury to something or some one. So according to them the only

way out of the world is to die. The Jains have preached this doctrine

as their highest ideal. This teaching seems to be very logical. But

the true solution is found in the Gita. It is the theory of non-

attachment, to be attached to nothing while doing our work of life.

Know that you are separated entirely from the world, though you are

in the world, and that whatever you may be doing in it, you are not

doing that for your own sake. Any action that you do for yourself

will bring its effect to bear upon you. If it is a good action, you

will have to take the good effect, and if bad, you will have to take

the bad effect; but any action that is not done for your own sake,

whatever it be, will have no effect on you. There is to be found a

very expressive sentence in our scriptures embodying this idea: " 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. " Therefore Karma-Yoga teaches, " 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. "

Enjoyment should not be the goal. First kill your self and then take

the whole world as yourself; as the old Christians used to say, " The

old man must die. " This old man is the selfish idea that the whole

world is made for our enjoyment. 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. Do not teach your children such

nonsense. Then again, there are people who are foolish in another

way: they teach us that all these animals were created for us to kill

and eat, and that this universe is for the enjoyment of men. That is

all foolishness. A tiger may say, " Man was created for me, " and

pray, " O Lord, how wicked are these men who do not come and place

themselves before me to be eaten; they are breaking Your law. " If the

world is created for us, we are also created for the world. That this

world is created for our enjoyment is the most wicked idea that holds

us down. This world is not for our sake. Millions pass out of it

every year; the world does not feel it; millions of others are

supplied in their place. Just as much as the world is for us, so we

also are for the world.

 

To work properly, therefore, you have first to give up the idea of

attachment. Secondly, do not mix in the fray, hold yourself as a

witness and go on working. My master used to say, " Look upon your

children as a nurse does. " The nurse will take your baby and fondle

it and play with it and behave towards it as gently as if it were her

own child; but as soon as you give her notice to quit, she is ready

to start off bag and baggage from the house. Everything in the shape

of attachment is forgotten; it will not give the ordinary nurse the

least pang to leave your children and take up other children. Even so

are you to be with all that you consider your own. You are the nurse,

and if you believe in God, believe that all these things which you

consider yours are really His. The greatest weakness often insinuates

itself as the greatest good and strength. It is a weakness to think

that any one is dependent on me, and that I can do good to another.

This belief is the mother of all our attachment, and through this

attachment comes all our pain. We must inform our minds that no one

in this universe depends upon us; not one beggar depends on our

charity; not one soul on our kindness; not one living thing on our

help. All are helped on by nature, and will be so helped even though

millions of us were not here. The course of nature will not stop for

such as you and me; it is, as already pointed out, only a blessed

privilege to you and to me that we are allowed, in the way of helping

others, to educate ourselves. This is a great lesson to learn in

life, and when we have learned it fully, we shall never be unhappy;

we can go and mix without harm in society anywhere and everywhere.

You may have wives and husbands, and regiments of servants, and

kingdoms to govern; if only you act on the principle that the world

is not for you and does not inevitably need you, they can do you no

harm. This very year some of your friends may have died. Is the world

waiting without going on, for them to come again? Is its current

stopped? No, it goes on. So drive out of your mind the idea that you

have to do something for the world; the world does not require any

help from you. It is sheer nonsense on the part of any man to think

that he is born to help the world; it is simply pride, it is

selfishness insinuating itself in the form of virtue. When you have

trained your mind and your nerves to realise this idea of the world's

non-dependence on you or on anybody, there will then be no reaction

in the form of pain resulting from work. When you give something to a

man and expect nothing--do not even expect the man to be grateful--

his ingratitude will not tell upon you, because you never expected

anything, never thought you had any right to anything in the way of a

return. You gave him what he deserved; his own Karma got it for him;

your Karma made you the carrier thereof. Why should you be proud of

having given away something? You are the porter that carried the

money or other kind of gift, and the world deserved it by its own

Karma. Where is then the reason for pride in you? There is nothing

very great in what you give to the world. When you have acquired the

feeling of non-attachment, there will then be neither good nor evil

for you. It is only selfishness that causes the difference between

good and evil. It is a very hard thing to understand, but you will

come to learn in time that nothing in the universe has power over you

until you allow it to exercise such a power. Nothing has power over

the Self of man, until the Self becomes a fool and loses

independence. So, by non-attachment, you overcome and deny the power

of anything to act upon you. It is very easy to say that nothing has

the right to act upon you until you allow it to do so; but what is

the true sign of the man who really does not allow anything to work

upon him, who is neither happy nor unhappy when acted upon by the

external world? The sign is that good or ill fortune causes no change

in his mind: in all conditions he continues to remain the same.

 

There was a great sage in India called Vyasa. This Vyasa is known as

the author of the Vedanta aphorisms, and was a holy man. His father

had tried to become a very perfect man and had failed. His

grandfather had also tried and failed. His great-grandfather had

similarly tried and failed. He himself did not succeed perfectly, but

his son, Shuka, was born perfect. Vyasa taught his son wisdom; and

after teaching him the knowledge of truth himself, he sent him to the

court of King Janaka. He was a great king and was called Janaka

Videha. Videha means " without a body " . Although a king, he had

entirely forgotten that he was a body; he felt that he was a spirit

all the time. This boy Shuka was sent to be taught by him. The king

knew that Vyasa's son was coming to him to learn wisdom: so he made

certain arrangements beforehand. And when the boy presented himself

at the gates of the palace, the guards took no notice of him

whatsoever. They only gave him a seat, and he sat there for three

days and nights, nobody speaking to him, nobody asking him who he was

or whence he was. He was the son of a very great sage, his father was

honoured by the whole country, and he himself was a most respectable

person; yet the low, vulgar guards of the palace would take no notice

of him. After that, suddenly, the ministers of the king and all the

big officials came there and received him with the greatest honours.

They conducted him in and showed him into splendid rooms, gave him

the most fragrant baths and wonderful dresses, and for eight days

they kept him there in all kinds of luxury. That solemnly serene face

of Shuka did not change even to the smallest extent by the change in

the treatment accorded to him; he was the same in the midst of this

luxury as when waiting at the door. Then he was brought before the

king. The king was on his throne, music was playing, and dancing and

other amusements were going on. The king then gave him a cup of milk,

full to the brim, and asked him to go seven times round the hall

without spilling even a drop. The boy took the cup and proceeded in

the midst of the music and the Rattraction of the beautiful faces. As

desired by the king, seven times did he go round, and not a drop of

the milk was spilt. The boy's mind could not be attracted by anything

in the world, unless he allowed it to affect him. And when he brought

the cup to the king, the king said to him, " What your father has

taught you, and what you have learned yourself, I can only repeat.

You have known the Truth; go home. "

 

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.

We generally find men holding two opinions regarding the world. Some

are pessimists and say, " How horrible this world is, how wicked! "

Some others are optimists and say, " How beautiful this world is, how

wonderful! " To those who have not controlled their own minds, the

world is either full of evil or at best a mixture of good and evil.

This very world will become to us an optimistic world when we become

masters of our own minds. Nothing will then work upon us as good or

evil; we shall find everything to be in its proper place, to be

harmonious. Some men, who begin by saying that the world is a hell,

often end by saying that it is a heaven when they succeed in the

practice of self-control. If we are genuine Karma -Yogis and wish to

train ourselves to that attainment of this state, wherever we may

begin we are sure to end in perfect self-abnegation; and as soon as

this seeming self has gone, the whole world, which at first appears

to us to be filled with evil, will appear to be heaven itself and

full of blessedness. Its very atmosphere will be blessed; every human

face there will be god. Such is the end and aim of Karma-Yoga, and

such is its perfection in practical life.

 

Our various Yogas do not conflict with each other; each of them leads

us to the same goal and makes us perfect. Only each has to be

strenuously practised. The whole secret is in practising. First you

have to hear, then think, and then practise. This is true of every

Yoga. You have first to hear about it and understand what it is; and

many things which you do not understand will be made clear to you by

constant hearing and thinking. It is hard to understand everything at

once. The explanation of everything is after all in yourself. No one

was ever really taught by another; each of us has to teach himself.

The external teacher offers only the suggestion which rouses the

internal teacher to work to understand things. Then things will be

made clearer to us by our own power of perception and thought, and we

shall realise them in our own souls; and that realisation will grow

into the intense power of will. 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. This attainment does not depend on

any dogma, or doctrine, or belief. Whether one is Christian, or Jew,

or Gentile, it does not matter. Are you unselfish? That is the

question. If you are, you will be perfect without reading a single

religious book, without going into a single church or temple. Each

one of our Yogas is fitted to make man perfect even without the help

of the others, because they have all the same goal in view. The Yogas

of work, of wisdom, and of devotion are all capable of serving as

direct and independent means for the attainment of Moksha. " 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.