Work and its Secret
Los Angeles, January 1900
Means are as important as ends in all that we do. Our failures are often due to our ends being beyond our means. If we paid careful attention to means, the results would flow automatically. Means and ends are related to each other as cause and effect.
The Gita teaches us to put our whole mind on work, without a thought to the results. This calls for the strength of mind. If we succumb to desire for the results, it is a source of weakness. Success comes unasked, unsought, to the strong. If you are weak, you will be overcome by failure, sorrow or disease.
Attachment and detachment are key attitudes to work. Attachment can be to high eternal values, and efforts directed to them alone can bring true, long-lasting joy. But attachment to low, transient values, lead to sorrow in the event of failure, or pleasure in the event of success. But the success is short-lived and soon yields to the next failure and it’s trail of sorrow. The secret of success lies in attachment to eternal values, detachment in respect of transient ones. The teaching of detachment has to be understood thus. Life must be joyful, full of joy, and not be an existence bereft of joy
Selfless love is an eternal value, while selfish love is a transient one. Whatever we do, we want a return. We all are traders. We are traders in virtue, we are traders in religion. And Alas! we are traders in love.
Ask nothing; want nothing in return. Give what you have to give; it will come back multiplied a thousand fold — but the attention must not be on that. You have the power to give, and there it ends. Learn that the whole of life is giving, that Nature will force you to give. Sooner or later, you will have to give up.”
All this is very difficult, but can overcome by practice. Constant practice opens your mind to the fact that there is a constant interaction between your inner nature and your external circumstance; to the fact that you can control the former, but not the latter; and to the fact that the former is your only choice, and that if you take it, you will pre-empt the actions and reactions of circumstance. This is the only way open to you of pre-empting failure and sorrow. Blaming circumstance, blaming the world, can only give sorrow, not a solution. It is self-defeating.
The Power of the Mind
Los Angeles, January 1900
In every country, you will find the individuals of extraordinary mental or psychic powers, bordering on the miraculous. The ancients of India studied these powers systematically, and showed that they could be acquired by practice. They embodied their findings in a science called Raja Yoga. One of their conclusions was that the minds of individuals were parts of an external continuum which they called the Universal Mind. It was this that made seemingly miraculous phenomena like telepathy possible. They held that such phenomena were not super-natural but natural. (Today, we take for granted waves that enable us not only to see and hear, but also burn, melt, cut, penetrate and carry information across space; we still do not know whether thought waves can do these or more!)
Yet beyond mental or intellectual power lies another distinct dimension that gives extraordinary power to individuals to influence people. This can be simply stated as power of the personality.
Compare the great leaders of religion with the great philosophers. The philosophers scarcely influenced anyone’s inner man, and yet they wrote most marvellous books. The religious teachers on the other hand, moved countries in their lifetime. In one case… it is a flash of light … In the other, it is like a torch that goes around quickly, lighting up the others.”
The science of Yoga addresses the laws and methods which help man to grow and strengthen his personality. These laws indicate that behind the gross level of power that we can physically sense, lie the sources of power of increasing sutlety, the ultimate one being the spirit. Man, both as an individual and as a race, is progressing, not only towards acquiring these deeper powers, but to an ideal beyond.
“Let us call it (this ideal) perfection. Some men and women are born who can anticipate the whole progress of mankind. Instead of waiting … they rush through them (all the processes) in a few short years of their life. And we know that we can hasten these processes, if we can be true to ourselves. … And this is what the Yogis say, that all great incarnations and prophets are such men. We have had such men at all the periods of the world’s history, at all times… Even this hastening of the growth must be under laws. Suppose we investigate these laws and understand their secrets and apply them to our own needs; it follows that we grow. We hasten our growth; we hasten our development, and we become perfect, even in this life. This is the higher part of our life, and the study of the science of the mind and its powers have this perfection as it’s real end.”
This science calls for more application that any business can ever require. It challenges comparison with any other science. There have been charlatans, there have been magicians, there have been cheats, more here than any other field. Why ? For the same reason, that the more profitable the business, the greater the number of charlatans and cheats. But that is no reason why the business should not be good.
