Karma Yoga Bhakti Yoga

Author(s): Swami Vivekanand
Publisher: Ramkrishna Vivekananda Center of New York INC

Page 38

28
KARMA-YOGA
The householder must speak the truth, and speak gently, using words which people like, which will do good to others; and he should not talk of the business of other men.
The householder by digging tanks, by planting trees on the roadsides, by establishing rest-houses for men and animals, by making roads and building bridges, goes towards the same goal as the greatest Yogin.
This is one part of the doctrine of Karma-Yoga --activity, the duty of the householder. There is u passage later on, where it says that "If the householder dies in battle, fighting for his country or his religion, he comes to the same goal as the Yogin by meditation,” showing thereby that what is duty for one is not duty for another; at the same time, it does not say that this duty is lowering and the other elevating; each duty has its own place, and according to the circumstances in which we are placed, must we perform our duties.
One idea comes out of all this, the condemnation of all weakness. This is a particular idea in all our teachings which I like, either in philosophy, or in religion, or in work. If you read the Vedas you will find this word always repeated—“fearlessness”fear nothing. Fear is a sign of weakness. A man must go about his duties without taking notice of the sneers and the ridicule of the world.
If a man retires from the world to worship God, he must not think that those who live in the world