Karma Yoga

My notes from ‘Vedanta: Voice of Freedom” – a selected compilation from the Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda.

“Karma Yoga” – Chapter Highlights reproduced below:

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One of the greatest lessons I have learned in my life is to pay as much attention to the means of work as to its end.

Our great defect in life is that we are so much drawn to the ideal; the goal is so much more enchanting, so much more alluring, so much bigger in our mental horizon, that we lose sight of the details altogether.

With the means all right, the end must come. We forget that it is the cause that produces the effect. The effect cannot come by itself. And unless the causes are exact, proper, and powerful, the effect will not be produced.

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.

As a rule, the desire for name and fame seldom brings immediate results; 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 practice it.

All outgoing energy following from a selfish motive is frittered away. It will not cause power to return to you. But if selfishness is restrained, it will result in development of power.

Be unattached. Let things work; let brain centers work; work incessantly, but let not a ripple conquer the mind. Work as if you were a stranger in this land, a sojourner. Work incessantly, but do not bind yourselves.

Do you ask anything from your children in return for what you have given them? It is your duty to work for them, and there the matter ends. In whatever you do for a particular person, city, or state, assume the same attitude toward it as you have toward your children— expect nothing in return. If you can invariably take the position of a giver, in which everything given by you is a free offering to the world, without any thought of return, then your work will bring you no attachment. Attachment comes only where we expect a return.

If you want to be a householder, hold your life as a sacrifice for the welfare of others, and if you choose the life of renunciation, do not even look at beauty and money and power. Each is great in his own place, but the duty of the one is not the duty of the other.

Our duty to others means helping others, doing good to the world. Why should we do good to the world? Apparently to help the world, but really to help ourselves.

To go out and help others is, therefore, the best thing we can do, although, in the long run, we shall find that helping others is only helping ourselves.

The desire to do good is the highest motive power we have, if we know all the time that it is a privilege to help others. Do not stand on a high pedestal and take five cents in your hand and say, “Here, my poor man!” But be grateful that the poor man is there, so that by making a gift to him you are able to help yourself.

It is not the receiver that is blessed, but it is the giver. Be thankful that you are allowed to exercise your power of benevolence and mercy in the world, and thus become pure and perfect.

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.

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