WHAT IS DUTY? - 5

There is a sage in India, a great Yogi, one of the most wonderful men I have
ever seen in my life. He is a peculiar man, he will not teach any one; if you ask
him a question he will not answer. It is too much for him to take up the position
of a teacher, he will not do it. If you ask a question, and wait for some days, in
the course of conversation he will bring up the subject, and wonderful light will
he throw on it. He told me once the secret of work, "Let the end and the means
be joined into one." When you are doing any work, do not think of anything
beyond. Do it as worship, as the highest worship, and devote your whole life to
it for the time being. Thus, in the story, the Vyadha and the woman did their
duty with cheerfulness and whole-heartedness; and the result was that they
became illuminated, clearly showing that the right performance of the duties of
any station in life, without attachment to results, leads us to the highest
realisation of the perfection of the soul.
It is the worker who is attached to results that grumbles about the nature of the
duty which has fallen to his lot; to the unattached worker all duties are equally
good, and form efficient instruments with which selfishness and sensuality may
be killed, and the freedom of the soul secured. We are all apt to think too
highly of ourselves. Our duties are determined by our deserts to a much larger
extent than we are willing to grant. Competition rouses envy, and it kills the
kindliness of the heart. To the grumbler all duties are distasteful; nothing will
ever satisfy him, and his whole life is doomed to prove a failure. Let us work
on, doing as we go whatever happens to be our duty, and being ever ready to
put our shoulders to the wheel. Then surely shall we see the Light!