Vivekananda Mailing List-11/28/02

[Guest guest]

If there were not in this city hundreds who had striven to become rich,

and who had acquired wealth, where would all this civilization, and

these alms-houses and great houses be?

 

Going after wealth in such a case is not bad, because that wealth is

for distribution. The householder is the centre of life and society. It

is a worship for him to acquire and spend wealth nobly, for the

householder who struggles to become rich by good means and for good

purposes is doing practically the same thing for the attainment of

salvation as the anchorite does in his cell when he is praying; for in

them we see only the different aspects of the same virtue of

self-surrender and self-sacrifice prompted by the feeling of devotion

to God and to all that is His.

 

He must struggle to acquire a good name by all means. He must not

gamble, he must not move in the company of the wicked, he must not tell

lies, and must not be the cause of trouble to others.

 

Often people enter into things they have not the means to accomplish,

with the result that they cheat others to attain their own ends. Then

there is in all things the time factor to be taken into consideration;

what at one time might be a failure, would perhaps at another time be a

very great success.