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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. |
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