Book Title: Karma Yoga
Author(s): Swami Vivekanand
Publisher: Ramkrishna Mission Institute of Culture Culcutta

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Page 286
________________ BHAKTI-YOGA. supreme devotion and must not observe the ritualistic sacrifices, enjoined in some of the scriptures, the sole object of which is the attainment of sense-enjoyments, either in this world or the next, thus leading one to greater and greater bondage and farther and farther away from the Lord. Hence as to sacrificial works it is to be understood that he will have to perform the five great sacrifices ( AER ) only and nothing more. Purity therefore is the basement, the one bed-rock upon which the whole bhakti-building rests. Cleansing the external body and discriminating the food are both easy, but without internal cleanliness and without purity, these external observances are of no value whatsoever. In the list of the qualities conductive to purity, as given by Ramanuja, there have been enumerated—Satya, truthfulness, Arjava, sincerity, Daya, doing good to others without expectation of any gain to one's self; Ahimsa, not injuring others by thought,

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