What Is Duty?/Swami Vivekananda

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Swami Vivekananda

WHAT IS DUTY?

It is necessary in the study of Karma-Yoga to know what duty is. If I have to do

something I must first know that it is my duty, and then I can do it. The idea

of duty again is different in different nations. The Mohammedan says what is

written in his book, the Koran, is his duty; the Hindu says what is in the

Vedas is his duty; and the Christian says what is in the Bible is his duty. We

find that there are varied ideas of duty, differing according to different

states in life, different historical periods and different nations. The term

"duty", like every other universal abstract term, is impossible clearly to

define; we can only get an idea of it by knowing its practical operations and

results. When certain things occur before us, we have all a natural or trained

impulse to act in a certain manner towards them; when this impulse comes, the

mind begins to think about the situation. Sometimes it thinks that it is good

to act in a particular manner under the given

conditions; at other times it thinks that it is wrong to act in the same manner

even in the very same circumstances. The ordinary idea of duty everywhere is

that every good man follows the dictates of his conscience. But what is it that

makes an act a duty? If a Christian finds a piece of beef before him and does

not eat it to save his own life, or will not give it to save the life of

another man, he is sure to feel that he has not done his duty. But if a Hindu

dares to eat that piece of beef or to give it to another Hindu, he is equally

sure to feel that he too has not done his duty; the Hindu's training and

education make him feel that way. In the last century there were notorious

bands of robbers in India called thugs; they thought it their duty to kill any

man they could and take away his money; the larger the number of men they

killed, the better they thought they were. Ordinarily if a man goes out into

the street and shoots down another man, he is apt to feel sorry for it,

thinking that he has done wrong. But if the very same man, as a soldier in his

regiment, kills not one but twenty, he is certain to feel glad and think that

he has done his duty remarkable well. Therefore we see that it is not the thing

done that defines a duty. To give an objective definition of duty is thus

entirely impossible. Yet there is duty from the subjective side. Any action

that makes us go Godward is a good action, and is our duty; any action that

makes us go downward is evil, and is not our duty. From the subjective

standpoint we may see that certain acts have a tendency to exalt and ennoble

us, while certain other acts have a tendency to degrade and to brutalise us.

But it is not possible to make out with certainty which acts have which kind of

tendency in relation to all persons, of all sorts and conditions. There is,

however, only one idea of duty which has been universally accepted by all

mankind, of all ages and sects and countries, and that has been summed up in a

Sanskrit aphorism thus: "Do not injure any being; not injuring any being is

virtue, injuring any being is sin." The Bhagavad Gita frequently alludes to

duties dependent upon birth and position in life. Birth and position in life

and in society largely determine the mental and moral attitude of individuals

towards the various activities of life. It is therefore our duty to do that

work which will exalt and ennoble us in accordance with the ideals and

activities of the society in which we are born. But it must be particularly

remembered that the same ideals and activities do not prevail in all societies

and countries; our ignorance of this is the main cause of much of the hatred of

one nation towards another. An American thinks that whatever an American does in

accordance with the custom of his country is the best thing to do, and that

whoever does not follow his custom must be a very wicked man. A Hindu thinks

that his customs are the only right ones and are the best in the world, and

that whosoever does not obey them must be the most wicked man living. This is

quite a natural

mistake which all of us are apt to make. But it is very harmful; it is the cause

of half the uncharitableness found in the world. When I came to this country and

was going through the Chicago Fair, a man from behind pulled at my turban. I

looked back and saw that he was a very gentlemanly-looking man, neatly dressed.

I spoke to him; and when he found that I knew English, he became very much

abashed. On another occasion in the same Fair another man gave me a push. When

I asked him the reason, he also was ashamed and stammered out an apology

saying, "Why do you dress that way?" The sympathies of these men were limited

within the range of their own language and their own fashion of dress. Much of

the oppression of powerful nations on weaker ones is caused by this prejudice.

It dries up their fellow-feeling for fellow men. That very man who asked me why

I did not dress as he did and wanted to ill-treat me because of my dress may

have been a very good man, a good father, and a good

citizen; but the kindliness of his nature died out as soon as he saw a man in a

different dress. Strangers are exploited in all countries, because they do not

know how to defend themselves; thus they carry home false impressions of the

peoples they have seen. Sailors, soldiers, and traders behave in foreign lands

in very queer ways, although they would not dream of doing so in their own

country; perhaps this is why the Chinese call Europeans and Americans "foreign

devils". They could not have done this if they had met the good, the kindly

sides of Western life. Therefore the one point we ought to remember is that we

should always try to see the duty of others through their own eyes, and never

judge the customs of other peoples by our own standard. I am not the standard

of the universe. I have to accommodate myself to the world, and not the world

to me. So we see that environments change the nature of our duties, and doing

the duty which is ours at any particular time is the best thing we can do in

this world. Let us do that duty which is ours by birth; and when we have done

that, let us do the duty which is ours by our position in life and in society.

There is, however, one great danger in human nature, viz. that man never

examines himself. He thinks he is quite as fit to be on the throne as the king.

Even if he is, he must first show that he has done the duty of his own position;

and then higher duties will come to him. When we begin to work earnestly in the

world, nature gives us blows right and left and soon enables us

to find out our position. No man can long occupy satisfactorily a position for

which he is not fit. There is no use in grumbling against nature's adjustment.

He who does the lower work is not therefore a lower man. No man is to be judged

by the mere nature of his duties, but all should be judged by the manner and the

spirit in which they perform them. Later on we shall find that even this idea of

duty undergoes change, and that the greatest work is done only when there is no

selfish motive to prompt it. Yet it is work through the sense of duty that

leads us to work without any idea of duty; when work will become worship--nay,

something higher--then will work be done for its own sake. We shall find that

the philosophy of duty, whether it be in the form of ethics or of love, is the

same as in every other Yoga--the object being the attenuating of the lower

self, so that the real higher Self may shine forth--the lessening of the

frittering away of energies on the lower plane of existence, so that the soul

may manifest itself on the higher ones. This is accomplished by the continuous

denial of low desires, which duty rigorously requires. The whole organisation

of society has thus been developed, consciously or unconsciously, in the realms

of action and experience, where, by limiting selfishness, we open the way to an

unlimited expansion of the real nature of man. Duty is seldom sweet. It is only

when love greases its wheels that it runs smoothly; it is a continuous friction

otherwise. How else could parents do their duties to their children, husbands to

their wives, and vice versa? Do we not meet with cases of friction every day in

our lives? Duty is sweet only through love, and love shines in freedom alone.

Yet is it freedom to be a slave to the senses, to anger, to jealousies and a

hundred other petty things that must occur every day in human life? In all

these little roughnesses that we meet with in life, the highest expression of

freedom is to forbear. Women, slaves to their own irritable, jealous tempers,

are apt to blame their husbands, and assert their own "freedom", as they think,

not knowing that thereby they only prove that they are slaves. So it is with

husbands who eternally find fault with their wives. Chastity is the first

virtue in man or woman, and the man who, however he may have strayed away,

cannot be brought to the right path by a gentle and loving and chaste wife is

indeed very rare. The world is not yet as bad as that. We hear much about

brutal husbands all over the world and about the impurity of men, but is it not

true that there are quite as many brutal and impure women as men? If all women

were as good and pure as their own constant assertions would lead one to

believe, I am perfectly satisfied that there would not be one impure man in the

world. What brutality is there which purity and chastity cannot conquer? A good,

chaste wife, who thinks of every other man except her own husband as her child

and has the attitude of a mother towards all men, will grow so great in the

power of her purity that there cannot be a single man, however brutal, who will

not breathe an atmosphere of holiness in her presence. Similarly, every husband

must look upon all

women, except his own wife, in the light of his own mother or daughter or

sister. That man, again, who wants to be a teacher of religion must look upon

every woman as his mother, and always behave towards her as such. The position

of the mother is the highest in the world, as it is the one place in which to

learn and exercise the greatest unselfishness. The love of God is the only love

that is higher than a mother's love; all others are lower. It is the duty of the

mother to think of her children first and then of herself. But, instead of that,

if the parents are always thinking of themselves first, the result is that the

relation between parents and children becomes the same as that between birds

and their offspring which, as soon as they are fledged, do not recognise any

parents. Blessed, indeed, is the man who is able to look upon woman as the

representative of the motherhood of God. Blessed, indeed, is the woman to whom

man represents the fatherhood of God. Blessed are the children who look upon

their parents as Divinity manifested on earth.The only way to rise is by doing

the duty next to us, and thus gathering strength go on until we reach the

highest state. A young

Sannyasin went to a forest; there he meditated, worshipped, and practised Yoga

for a long time. After years of hard work and practice, he was one day sitting

under a tree, when some dry leaves fell upon his head. He looked up and saw a

crow and a crane fighting on the top of the tree, which made him very angry. He

said, "What! Dare you throw these dry leaves upon my head!" As with these words

he angrily glanced at them, a flash of fire went out of his head--such was the

Yogi's power--and burnt the birds to ashes. He was very glad, almost overjoyed

at this development of power--he could burn the crow and the crane by a look.

After a time he had to go to the town to beg his bread. He went, stood at a

door, and said, "Mother, give me food." A voice came from inside the house,

"Wait a little, my son." The young man thought, "You wretched woman, how dare

you make me wait! You do not know my power yet." While he was thinking thus the

voice came again: "Boy, don't be thinking too much of

yourself. Here is neither crow nor crane." He was astonished; still he had to

wait. At last the woman came, and he fell at her feet and said, "Mother, how

did you know that?" She said, "My boy, I do not know your Yoga or your

practices. I am a common everyday woman. I made you wait because my husband is

ill, and I was nursing him. All my life I have struggled to do my duty. When I

was unmarried, I did my duty to my parents; now that I am married, I do my duty

to my husband; that is all the Yoga I practise. But by doing my duty I have

become illumined; thus I could read your thoughts and know what you had done in

the forest. If you want to know something higher than this, go to the market of

such and such a town where you will find a Vyadha 1 who will tell you something

that you will be very glad to learn." The Sannyasin thought, "Why should I go to

that town and to a Vyadha?" But after what he had seen, his mind opened a

little, so he went. When he came near the town, he found the

market and there saw, at a distance, a big fat Vyadha cutting meat with big

knives, talking and bargaining with different people. The young man said, "Lord

help me! Is this the man from whom I am going to learn? He is the incarnation of

a demon, if he is anything." In the meantime this man looked up and said, "O

Swami, did that lady send you here? Take a seat until I have done my business."

The Sannyasin thought, "What comes to me here?" He took his seat; the man went

on with his work, and after he had finished he took his money and said to the

Sannyasin, "Come sir, come to my home." On reaching home the Vyadha gave him a

seat, saying, "Wait here," and went into the house. He then washed his old

father and mother, fed them, and did all he could to please them, after which

he came to the Sannyasin and said, "Now, sir, you have come here to see me;

what can I do for you?" 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 Mahabharata, 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." 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 become 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!

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/5208/karmayoga/duty.html"...always look

at the positive side of things... " sri sathya sai

sairamdoris (AT) (DOT) es