Secret of Success - Self sacrifice

 

There was a quarrel between a pond and a river.

The pond addressed the river thus: "O river, you

are very foolish to give all your water and all your

wealth to the ocean; do not squander your water

and wealth on the ocean. The ocean is ungrateful,

the ocean needs it not. If you go on pouring into the

ocean all your accumulated treasures, the ocean

will remain as salty as it is today, the ocean will

remain as bitter as it is today, the brine of the sea

will not be altered. „Do not throw pearls before the

swine.‟ Keep all your treasures with you." This was

worldly wisdom.

Here was the river told to consider the end, to care

for the result and regard the consequences. But the

river was a Vedantin. After hearing this worldly

wisdom the river replied, "No, the consequence and

the result are nothing to me; failure and success are

nothing to me; I must work because I love work; I

must work for its own sake. To work is my aim, to

keep in activity is my life. My Soul, my real Atman

is energy itself. I must work." The river went on

working, the river went on pouring into the ocean

millions upon millions of gallons of water. The

miserly economic pond became dry in three or four

months; it became putrid, stagnant, full of festering

filth but the river remained fresh and pure, its

perennial springs did not dry up. Silently and

slowly was water taken from the surface of the

ocean to replenish the fountain-heads of the river;

monsoons and trade winds invisibly, silently and

slowly carried water from the ocean and kept the

river source fresh for ever.

Just so Vedanta requires not to follow the sophistic

policy of the pond. It is the small selfish pond that

cares for the result, "What will become of me and

my work?" Let your work be for work‟s sake; you

must work. Your work should be your goal and

thus Vedanta frees you from fretting and worrying

desires. This is the meaning of freedom from

desires which Vedanta preaches. Worry not about

the consequences, expect nothing from the people,

bother not about favourable reviews of your work

or severe criticism thereon. Care not whether what

you are doing will tell or not; think nothing of that.

Do the work for its own sake. This way you have to

free yourself from desire; you have not to free

yourself from work, but you have to free yourself

from yearning restlessness. This way how splendid

does your work become. The most effective and

best cure for all sorts of distracting passions and

temptations is work. But that would be only a

negative recommendation. The positive joy that

accompanies faithful work is a spark of Salvation,

unconscious Self-realization. It keeps you pure,

untainted, and one with Divinity. This happiness is

the highest and surest reward of work. Corrupt not

this health-bringing, heavenly treasure by setting

your heart on selfish motives for work. Sordid

ambitions and petty hankerings retard rather than

accelerate our progress; outward and concrete

allurements are detrimental rather than beneficial

to our efficiency of labour. No prize or appreciation

can be more benign or salubrious than the

immediate joy which accompanies earnest action.

Follow, then, action to realize the renunciation,

religion or worship it involves, and be not led by

the childish frivolities it promises. Feel no

responsibility, ask for no reward. Now here should

your goal be. People say, "First deserve and then

desire." Vedanta says, "Deserve only, no need of

desiring." "A stone that is fit for the wall will never

be found in the way." If you deserve, by an

irresistible Divine Law, everything will come to

you. If there is a lamp burning, the lamp should go

on burning, the lamp need not send any invitations

to the moths; moths will flock to the lamp of their

own accord. Where there is a fresh spring, people of

their own accord will be drawn to it; the spring

need not care a straw for the people. When the

moon rises, people will be drawn out of themselves

to enjoy the moonlight. Attack! Attack! Hammer

on! Hammer on! Work, work, work so as to realize

the nothingness of the body and the supreme

reality of the true Self. Thus at the height of

apparent activity you will taste Nirvana and

Kaivalya, and when in this way you have suffered

your personality and ego to be raised on the cross

of labour, success will seek you and there will be no

scarcity of people who will come and appreciate.

People did not accept Christ so long as he was alive;

he must be crucified before he is worshipped.

„Truth crushed to earth shall rise again.‟ No seed

can spring up and multiply without suffering

destruction as to its form and appearance. So the

second essential to success is sacrifice, crucifying

the little self, renunciation. Misunderstand not that

word "renunciation." Renunciation does not mean

asceticism.

Everybody wants to be white, dazzling, brilliant,

bright. How can you become glorious? Why are

objects white? Just look at the white objects. What

makes them so white? Science tells you that the

secret of whiteness is renunciation, nothing less.

The seven colours in the rays of the Sun impinge

upon different objects. Some objects absorb and

retain most of these colours and project back only

one. Such objects are known by the very colour they

throw back or deny to themselves. You call that

rose pink, but that is the very colour which does not

belong to the rose. The colours it has absorbed,

which are really in it, are the colours you do not

attribute to the rose. How strange! The black objects

absorb all the colours in the rays of the Sun. They

give out no colour, they renounce nothing, they

throw back nothing, and they are dark, black. The

white objects absorb nothing, claim nothing, they

renounce everything. They do not try to keep

selfish possession. They have not a proprietary

spirit and thus they are white, dazzling, bright,

brilliant.

Similarly if you want to become glorious and

prosperous, you shall have to rise in your heart of

hearts above the selfish, proprietary spirit. You

must rise above that. Be always a giver, a free

worker; never throw your heart in a begging,

expecting attitude. Get rid of the monopolizing

habit. Why should you lay exclusive claim to the air

in your lungs? That air is everybody‟s property. On

the other hand when you cease to appropriate the

small quantity of air in your lungs, you find

yourself heir to all the atmosphere, unlimited

become your resources; breathe in the oxygen of the

universe. Be not vain, be not proud. Never feel that

anything belongs to your little self; it is God‟s, your

real Atman‟s. Take the case of Sir Isaac Newton.

How was it that he became so bright, brilliant,

glorious in the eyes of the world? At the time of his

death, the spirit in which he had worked was made

known. When complimented on being the greatest

man in the world, he replied, "Oh, no! this intellect

or this small personality of mine is simply like a

little child gathering pebbles on the vast, immense

sea-shore of knowledge." He was yet lying upon

the sands, gathering pebbles. Thus we see that the

unassuming spirit which appropriates or claims

nothing, which does not aggrandize the little self, is

the spirit which puts your capacity and working

powers at their best and this is the characteristic

spirit of Vedanta.

You own desires, you have all kinds of desires, and

you wish that your desires should be fulfilled; but

learn the secret of the fulfilment of desires. How do

we raise the window shade? We want the window

shade to rise up, but we have to give it a downward

pull and let it go and there the window shade

ascends. This illustrates the secret of the fulfilment

of all your desires. It is only when you let go the desire

that it fructifies. How are arrows shot? We take up

the bow and bend it. So long as we are stretching

the string, the arrow does not reach the enemy. You

may stretch it ever so hard, the arrow will be with

you still. It is only when you let it go that bang flies

the arrow to pierce the bosom of your foe. Similarly

so long as you keep your desire stretched or go on

desiring, willing, wishing and yearning, it will not

reach the bosom of the other party; it is only when

you let it go that it penetrates the soul of the party

concerned. "It is only when you leave me and lose

me that you find me by your side." It is only when

you cast yourself in a strange, indescribable

sentiment which is higher than both of us, that you

find me. This is what Vedanta tells you.

Two monks were travelling together. One of them

maintained in practice the spirit of accumulation.

The other was a man of renunciation. They

discussed the subject of possession versus

renunciation till they reached the bank of a river. It

was late in the evening. The man who preached

renunciation had no money with him, but the other

had. The man of renunciation said, "What do we

care for the body; we have no money to pay the

boatman, we can pass away the night even on this

bank singing the name of God." The moneyed

monk replied, "If we stay on this side of the river,

we can find no village, no hamlet or hut, no

company, wolves will devour us, snakes will bite

us, cold will chill us. We had better ferry to the

other side. I have money with which to pay the

boatman to ferry us over to the other bank. On that

side there is a village; we will live there

comfortably." Well, the boatman came over and

both of them were ferried across the river to the

opposite shore. At night the man who had paid the

fare remonstrated with the man of renunciation:

"Do you not see the advantage of keeping money? I

kept money and two lives were saved. Henceforth

you should never preach renunciation. Had I also

been a man of renunciation like you, we would

have both starved or been chilled and killed on that

side of the river." But the man of renunciation

answered, "Had you kept the money with you, had

you not parted with the money, renounced it to the

boatman, we would have died on the other bank.

Thus it was the giving up of money or renunciation

that brought us safety." Again, he continued, "If I

kept no money in my pocket, your pocket became

my pocket. My faith kept money for me in that

pocket. I never suffer. Whenever I am in need, I am

provided for." This story indicates that so long as

you keep your desires in your pocket, there is no

safety or rest for you. Renounce your desires, rise

above them and you find double

peace—immediate rest and eventual fruition of

desires. Remember that your desires will be

realized only when you consciously or

unconsciously lose yourself in the Divinity, then

and then only will the time be ripe for the

fulfilment of desires.