The Secret of Work -Swami Vivekananda
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Introduction to the Author:-
Swami Vivekanand was born in Calcutta on January 12, 1863 on the holy day of Makar Sakranti. His father Vishwanath Dutt, was a prominent lawyer of Calcutta and bis mother Bhuvaneswari Devi was a very cultured woman of aristocratic upbringing. The Dattas named the child Narendra Nath. Boisterous and vivacious child Narendra Nath was the darling of everybody in and near home. He grew an athlete and was proficient in all kinds of games and sports. He was a student with superlative talents both innate and acquired had a very wide range of reading and a very relentive memory and was very much above the average. A hundredgraces and excellences marked him out as a genius even at school and college. He graduated from the Calcutta university in 1884.
Narendra Nath was a thinker and the question of god troubled him. Destiny took him to Sri Ramkrishna and inn the simple, rustic temple priest did the college educated ratio a list find sage and saviour. Narandra Nath imbibed all the upper human wisdom of the Paramhansa and became his alterego. When Ramkrishna passed away in 1886 the gigantic burden of executing Sri Ramkrishna's mission fell on the very young shoulders of Narendra Nath. He enounced home and became Swami Vivekanand and founded the Ramkrishna Mission.
Swami Vivekanand then, wandered over India from Kashmir to Cape Comorin, studying the motherland, understanding her problems at first hand, and forming solutions for her regeneration. In 1893 the Swami left for America to attend the Parliament of Religions. He fascinated the Parliament by his address and his message came like the breath of life to a suffocated people. He went to England and Europe lecturing an teaching and helping westerners to study Indian philosophy.
Swami Vivekanand was a great writer. His writings have a fire that warms but does not burn. They are irresistible calls to the soul. To young men and women who feel the urge to live lives elevated above the dreary and the commonplace, nothing can be more helpful than to study the works of Vivekanand.
Introduction to the Chapter:-
"The Secret of Work" is an extract from Swami Vivekanand's "Karma Yoga' in which he gives a lucid exposition of the doctrine of non-attachment to work as preached by Lord Krishna to Arjuna in the Bhagwad Geeta. In the present extract Vivekanand lays emphasis on the important of work as a means of man's full spiritual development. While explaining the secret of work. Swami Vivekanand says that ignorance is at the root of all our miseries. Work we must and every work is a mixture of good and evil. non-attachment to work is the only solution for getting freedom from the bondage of work and its crampling influence. We should work dispassionately and disinterestedly.
Every work, says Swami Vivekanand leaves an impression on our mind. Our character is the sum total of these impressions. Good actions and though leave good impressions and bad actions leave bad impressions. By continuous good thoughts and action a man is able to control his motives an organs and his good character is established.
Swami Vivekanand says that freedom from the bondage of evil as well as of good can be achieved only by selfless and unattached work. This is possible only when all our actions are based on love. We should work without expecting any return for what we do. we should dedicate the fruits of our work to God. This is the secret of work as taught by Swami Vivekanand.
Main Points of the Chapter:-
1. Helping man spiritually is the best help that can be extended to him.
2. Next to spiritual comes intellectual help. The gift of knowledge is far higher gift than that of food and clothes.
3. Physical help is the least important because it can never bring permanent satisfaction.
4. No amount of physical help can remove human miseries completely Miseries will care only when men are pure and spiritually strong..
5. Every work that we do is a mixture of good and evil.
6. To be free from the bondage of good and evil we should go on doing work without being attached to it.
7. Everywork that we do and every thought that we think leaves an impression on our mind.
8. The character of a person is determined by the sum total of these impressions
9. If a man goes on doing good work and thinking good thoughts his good character is established.
10. A man of good character is able to control his Indriyas. He is safe for ever, he cannot do any evil.
11. Liberation of the soul from the bondage of good as well as evil is the ultimate work.
12. Nature is for the soul, not the soul for nature. So we should not be attached to nature. 13. Attachment to nature binds us down and makes us work not as freedom but as slaves.
Summary in English:-
The Highest type of help
Swami Vivekanand tells us how best we can help people. By giving a man physical help we can give him temporary relief and remove his physical needs but physical needs have no end. If one physical need is satisfied, another arises. So physical needs have no end. Physical needs can be overcome only by spiritual power. So the best help that can be given to a person is spiritual help. A man who is spiritually strong is not troubled by physical wants. Next to spiritual help comes intellectual help. A man without knowledge does not live a real life. Ignorance is at the root of all our miseries and sorrows. Ignorance is death, knowledge is life. Life has no value without knowledge. more than food and clothes, man needs knowledge. So intellectual help is far more important and valuable than physical help. Only knowledge is not enough. We cannot solve our problems permanently unless we are spiritually strong. So spiritual help is the highest type of help.
Human Miseries and Their Cure
Human life, all over the world is full of miseries. All the efforts to satisfy the physical needs of man have failed to make human life happy and peaceful. Our physical needs go on arising and so our miseries do not come to an end. Swami Vivekanand says that man's physical needs will go on troubling him until man's nature changes. This can be done only by removing ignorance and making mankind pure. The greatest need of man is knowledge and spiritual strength. With the growth of knowledge and spiritual power our miseries will come to an end. No amount of material prosperity can make man permanently happy.
The Gospel of Geeta
Lord Krishna has told in the Bhagwad Geeta that we all must work without stopping. Man cannot remain without doing some kind of work. When he does not work, he dies. Every work that a man does is a mixture of good and evil. Both our good actions and soul of bad actions bind the soul. The aim of human life is the liberation of the soul from bondage. How can we liberate the soul from the bondage of our action? Geeta gives us. the solution. We can liberate the soul from this crampling influence of work by being unattached to it.
How is Character Established?
In the Geeta Lord Krishna has taught us to work but not to be attached to it How can we do this? Swami Vivekanand says that every work we do and every thought we think leaves an impression on the mind. These impressions remain stored in the subsconsecious region of our brain. Our character is determined by the sum total of these impressions. If we continuously hear bad words think bad thoughts and do bad acts, the mind will become a storehouse of bad impressions. This will create in us a tendency for doing bad acts. Man becomes a slave in the hands of the impressions stored in his mind. Similary if a man continuously hears good words, thinks good thoughts and does good. acts, his mind will be stored with good impressions which will create in him a tendency for doing good acts. A man's good character is established when his mind is stored with good impressions.
Freedom of the Soul
When a man's good character is established he is able control his motives and organs. Then he is the master and not the slave of his desires. Such a man is safe for ever. Desires and motives cannot force him to do any evil. But good and evil both bind the soul. There is a still higher state than having the tendency of doing good things. This is the desire to make the soul free from the bondage of good as well as evil. It is the desire for the liberation of soul. The bad tendencies have to be removed by good ones. When all that is evil disappears from the mind, the good tendencies have also to be removed. How to achieve this? Lord Krishna, in the Geeta says that we can achieve this by remaining unattached to our work. Our actions should proceed from the muscles and .he train but they should not make any deep impression of the soul. The soul should remain free.
How to remain unattached?
We perform hundreds of actions in our daily life. But only those actions make a deep impression on the mind to which were attached. Swami Vivekanand brings home this point by giving an example. We meet hundreds of persons during the day. When we retire at night we remember only those faces which we love or hate. Owing to our love or hate for a particular person his face makes a deeper impression on the mind. This is attachment and this is the bondage. We have to free our souls from this bondage. We can do this by remaining unattached. We should work but we should not bind ourselves to our work. We are bound to our work when we think of its fruits. Lord Krishna in the Geeta says that we should work and dedicate the fruits of our work of God. When we do so we remain unattached.
Soul and Nature
Swami Vivekanand says that this world is not our permanent abode. It is only one of the stages through which the human soul passes. The Geeta says that the whole of nature is for the soul, not the soul for nature, Nature exists to help in the liberation of the soul. It has no other meaning. We should always remember this and should not be attached to nature. The mistake we commit is that we identify ourselves with nature. We think that our soul is for nature. We think that the spirit is for the body. So we feed the body and neglect the spirit. We become attached to nature and forget the soul, This makes us work not as freemen but as slaves.