Book Title: Karma Yoga Bhakti Yoga
Author(s): Swami Vivekanand
Publisher: Ramkrishna Vivekananda Center of New York INC

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Page 119
________________ CHAPTER VIII THE IDEAL OF KARMA-YOGA The grandest idea in the religion of the Vedanta is that we may reach the same goal by different paths; and these paths I have generalised into fourviz., those of work, love, psychology and knowledge. But you must, at the same time, remember that these divisions are not very marked and quite exclusive of each other. Each blends into the other. But according to the type which prevails we name the divisions. It is not that you can find men who have no other faculty than that of work, nor that you can find men who are no more than devoted worshippers only, nor that there are men who have no more than mcre knowledge. These divisions are made in accordance with the type or the tendency that may be seen to prevail in a man. We have found that, in the end, all these four paths converge and become one. All religions and all methods of work and worship lead us to one and the same goal. I have already tried to point out that goal. It is freedom as I understand it. Everything that we perceive around us is struggling towards freedom, from the atom to the man, from the insentient, lifeless particle of matter to the highest existence on earth, the human soul. The whole universe is in

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