CHAPTER I. KARMA IN ITS EFFECT ON CHARACTER.
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 moulding
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 centre
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 centre, and is
attracting all the powers of the universe towards himself, and in
this centre is fusing them all and again sending them off in a big
current. Such a centre 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? Every one 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 Mahomedan 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 learned 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 learned 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.
