Liberty- VUSG – Dec 3, 2018
Class material covered in Vedanta US Study Group on Dec 3, 2018
Pg99
What is
Karma-Yoga? The knowledge of the secret of work. We see that the whole universe
is working. For what? For salvation, for liberty; from the atom to the highest
being, working for the one end, liberty for the mind, for the body, for the
spirit. All things are always trying to get freedom, flying away from bondage.
The sun, the moon, the earth, the planets, all are trying to fly away from
bondage. The centrifugal and the centripetal forces of nature are indeed typical
of our universe. Instead of being knocked about in this universe, and after
long delay and thrashing, getting to know things as they are, we learn
from Karma-Yoga the secret of work,
the method of work, the organizing power of work. A vast mass of energy may be
spent in vain if we do not know how to utilize it. Karma-Yoga makes a science
of work; you learn by it how best to utilize all the workings of this world.
Work is inevitable, it must be so;
but we should work to the highest
purpose. Karma-Yoga makes us admit that this world is a world of five minutes,
that it is a something we have to pass through; and that freedom is not here,
but is only to be found beyond. To find the way out of the bondages of the
world we have to go through it slowly and surely. There may be those
exceptional persons about whom I just spoke, those who can stand aside and give
up the world, as a snake casts off its skin and stands aside and looks at it.
There are no doubt these exceptional beings; but the rest of mankind have to go
slowly through the world of work. Karma-Yoga shows the process, the secret, and
the method of doing it to the best advantage.
What does it say?
"Work incessantly, but give up all attachment to work." Do not
identify yourself with anything. Hold your mind free. All this that you see, the
pains and the miseries, are but the necessary conditions of this world; poverty
and wealth and happiness are but momentary; they do not belong to our real
nature at all. Our nature is far beyond misery and happiness, beyond every
object of the senses, beyond the imagination; and yet we must go on working all
the time. "Misery comes through attachment, not through work." As
soon as we identify ourselves with the work we do, we feel miserable; but if we
do not identify ourselves with it, we do not feel that misery. If a beautiful picture
belonging to another is burnt, a man does not generally become miserable; but
when his own picture is burnt, how miserable he feels! Why? Both were beautiful
pictures, perhaps copies of the same original; but in one case very much more
misery is felt than in the other. It is because in one case he identifies
himself with the picture, and not in the other. This "I and mine" causes
the whole misery. With the sense of possession comes selfishness, and selfishness
brings on misery. Every act of selfishness or thought of selfishness makes us
attached to something, and immediately we are made slaves. Each wave in the
Chitta that says "I and mine" immediately puts a chain round us and
makes us slaves; and the more we say "I and mine", the more slavery grows,
the more misery increases. Therefore Karma-Yoga tells us to enjoy the beauty of
all the pictures in the world, but not to identify ourselves with any of them.
Never say "mine". Whenever we say a thing is "mine", misery
will immediately come. Do not even say "my child" in your mind.
Possess the child, but do not say "mine". If you do, then will come
the misery. Do not say “my house," do not say "my body". The
whole difficulty is there. The body is neither yours, nor mine, nor anybody's.
These bodies are coming and going by the laws of nature, but we are free,
standing as witness. This body is no more free than a picture or a wall. Why
should we be attached so much to a body? If somebody paints a picture, he does
it and passes on. Do not project that tentacle of selfishness, "I must
possess it". As soon as that is projected, misery will begin.
So, Karma-Yoga
says, first destroy the tendency to project this tentacle of selfishness, and
when you have the power of checking it, hold it in and do not allow the mind to
get into the ways of selfishness. Then you may go out into the world and work
as much as you can. Mix everywhere, go where you please; you will never be
contaminated with evil. There is the lotus leaf in the water; the water cannot
touch and adhere to it; so will you be in the world. This is called
"Vairâgya", dispassion or non-attachment. I believe I have told you
that without non-attachment there cannot be any kind of Yoga. Non-attachment is
the basis of all the Yogas. The man who gives up living in houses, wearing fine
clothes, and eating good food, and goes into the desert, may be a most attached
person. His only possession, his own body, may become everything to him; and as
he lives, he will be simply struggling for the sake of his body. Nonattachment
does not mean anything that we may do in relation to our external body, it is
all in the mind. The binding link of "I and mine" is in the mind. If
we have not this link with the body and with the things of the senses, we are
nonattached, wherever and whatever we may be. A man may be on a throne and
perfectly non-attached; another man may be in rags and still very much attached.
First, we have to attain this state of non-attachment and then to work
incessantly. Karma-Yoga gives us the method that will help us in giving up all
attachment, though it is indeed very hard.
ATTENDEES: Nandini, Tara, Neelam, Bhama,
Priti, Chandra
©
Nandini Mitra Banerjee
