Karma-Yoga : Ch-6. Part-15.

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CHAPTER VI

NON-ATTACHMENT IS COMPLETE SELF-ABNEGATION

Part-15.


To work properly, therefore, you have first to give up the idea of attachment.

Secondly, do not mix in the fray, hold yourself as a witness and go on working.

My master used to say, "Look upon your children as a nurse does."

The nurse will take your baby and fondle it and play with it and behave towards it as gently as if it were her own child; but as soon as you give her notice to quit, she is ready to start off bag and baggage from the house.

Everything in the shape of attachment is forgotten; it will not give the ordinary nurse the least pang to leave your children and take up other children.

Even so are you to be with all that you consider your own.

You are the nurse, and if you believe in God, believe that all these things which you consider yours are really His.

The greatest weakness often insinuates itself as the greatest good and strength.

It is a weakness to think that any one is dependent on me, and that I can do good to another.

This belief is the mother of all our attachment, and through this attachment comes all our pain.

We must inform our minds that no one in this universe depends upon us; not one beggar depends on our charity; not one soul on our kindness; not one living thing on our help.

Swami Vivekananda

To be continued  ...



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