Book Title: Practice of Karma Yoga
Author(s): Swami Sivananda
Publisher: Divine Life Society

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Page 81
________________ YOGA OF SERVICE serpent. Extract these two teeth and the serpentmind is tamed. There can be no bondage. It is the mind that creates the ideas of 'I-ness' and 'mine-ness'. It is the mind that links the Jiva and the man thinks: "I am the body." It is the mind that causes attachment to wife, son and property. If the binding link in the mind is destroyed, you can remain wherever you like. You can roam about peacefully in any part of the world unattached, like water on the lotus-leaf. Nothing can bind you. The whole mischief is wrought by the mind. A man may rule a vast dominion and yet he can be unattached. Queen Chudalai and Raja Janaka had not a bit of attachment for their wealth and estate. Janaka said: "Even if the whole of Mithila is burnt, nothing of mine will be lost." Look at the exalted mental state of Janaka! He was resting in his own Swaroopa or essential nature He had not a bit of attachment. The mental state of Chudalai also was the same as that of Janaka. Though Sikhidhwaja, the husband of Chudalai, lived in the forest with a piece of Kowpeen and a Kamandalu, his mind was full of attachment. He was attached to his body and his Kamandalu. A man may be intensely attached to a small piece of Kowpeen or a stick or a small tumbler or to his body, although he has left his family and property. At the time of death the mental pictures of a tumbler or stick only will come to his mind. Jada Bharata was attached to the deer, and the thought of the deer only came to his mind at the 77

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