Karma-Yoga : Ch-4. Part-15.

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Chapter-4.


What is Duty?


Part-15.


The Sannyasin asked him a few questions about soul and about God, and the Vyadha gave him a lecture which forms a part of the Mahâbhârata, called the Vyadha-Gita.

It contains one of the highest flights of the Vedanta.

When the Vyadha finished his teaching, the Sannyasin felt astonished.

He said, "Why are you in that body?

With such knowledge as yours why are you in a Vyadha's body, and doing such filthy, ugly work?"

"My son," replied the Vyadha, "no duty is ugly, no duty is impure. My birth placed me in these circumstances and environments. In my boyhood I learnt the trade; I am unattached, and I try to do my duty well. I try to do my duty as a householder, and I try to do all I can to make my father and mother happy. I neither know your Yoga, nor have I become a Sannyasin, nor did I go out of the world into a forest; nevertheless, all that you have heard and seen has come to me through the unattached doing of the duty which belongs to my position."


Swami Vivekananda

To be continued  ...


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