KY-6.9 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 enjoyments 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. SWAMI VIVEKANANDA
Posted on: Mon, 27 Jan 2014 08:53:39 +0000
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