The Ideal of Karma-Yoga

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THE IDEAL OF KARMA-YOGA

 

Swami Vivekananda

 

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 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 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. That 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 systems? 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 realizing

selflessness; and he has to work it out himself. Every moment of his

life must be realization, 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 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 schoolboy's 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 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 have

they 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 realizing 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

concern 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 nature's 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 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 has the deepest sympathy for

the lowest of animals, and never puts 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 ever been manifested.

He is the first great reformer the world has seen. He is 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 analyzed 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.