SPIRITUALITY.

Contents.

S. No.                              Particulars.

1.                        A Triumph of Spirit.

2.                        The Teachings of Swami Sivananda.

3.                        Overcome Ego, Be Happy.

4.                        The Seeds of Knowledge.

5.                        The Genesis of Svara.

6.                        Guru, Goddess, Mother.     
7.                        An Anatomy of Fanaticism - Swami Vivekananda.                 

(1). A TRIUMPH OF SPIRIT.

Deciding to skip a dinner invitation last Saturday night I settled down to watch the thirtieth year celebrations of the Art of Living that were being telecast live from Berlin. As the programme began I stared at the TV screen, thinking: Are those water droplets on the camera? "Please God, let it not be rain", I pleaded in prayer. "We have been waiting for this wonderful event for months; how can it rain!"

The evening had begun with a beautiful Sanskrit rendition by Grammy award winner Chandrika Tandon and her team. I watched, spell bound, as they continued to perform smilingly, completely oblivious to the rain that was gaining momentum. And it looked so windy, too. The ensemble included Swiss Alpine horns with 2,000 Bulgarian dancers in flower petal formation, looking beautiful from an aerial view. An aboriginal dance for mother earth, 2,000 guitarists making music, and 300 pianists under transparent canopies - all seemed to not mind the rain in the least.

An international community of hundreds or yogis demonstrated Surya Namaskaram and Yogasanas to the chant of Sanskrit slokas. Here I was, on a muggy day in Mumbai, glued to the TV while some 50,000 seekers and masters were enjoying themselves thoroughly despite the cold, wet weather in Berlin that day. "I wish you would take a flight and come here right now", SMS-ed my friend Mala who was in the midst of all. "I have no words to describe what's its like to be here", she added. "Aren't you freezing", I asked. "Who cares", she said, as she waited patiently for peace meditation to commence. This is a triumph of spirit, a spirit that rain cannot dampen, that the cold cannot freeze - the same spirit that even bad times cannot touch. This is the spirit that rose and soared, revealing itself in its full glory that day. Guruji (Sri Sri Ravi Shankar) said in Berlin: "when we started planning this event, we decided  that the theme song would be 'rainbow colours' - and the rains have come! We seem to have invited the rain gods".

I went back to three years ago in New York City where I was to style a special fashion shoot, all the way from Central Park to Times Square down to Soho. Every location was carefully examined and planned. Except for the weather, of course that was not in our control. The warm, bright summer day turned into a rainy, stormy day with heavy downpours and claps of thunder - just when I was to commence the shoot, as luck would have it. "Let's do the entire shoot at the place called Dumbo under the Brooklyn Bridge!" The photographer was trying to salvage the situation. What, is this why I put in all this effort and came this long way? "Let's shoot in the rain", I said, holding an umbrella over him and his expensive camera. "You shoot at a slow shutter speed and let's see what happens". The result was spectacular; the result was models sashaying against the rain-textured New York City skyline - it was almost like a soft painting. Needing to say, it was much talked about for months to come.

I read this in the Yoga Vashishtha: "Adversity can be prosperity and prosperity can truly be adversity depending on how you look at it". In death you have no choice, but if you consciously allow the spirit to triumph in every phase of your life, then that is called the Art of Living! -[Based on an article written by Ami Patel published in Times of India dated 07 July, 2011]-. 

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(2). THE TEACHINGS OF SWAMI SIVANANDA.

Friends: For many years I have been reading the writings of Swami Sivananda whom I had the fortune of meeting only a few months ago before his death.

Swami Sivananda brought spiritual comfort to many afflicted souls both in this country and abroad. His services to the spiritual regeneration of our country were indeed very notable, and it is good that he left behind a number of writings and a number of disciples. After all, the glory of this country consists not so much in military heroes or industrial magnates or political geniuses but saints and seers : santo bhumim tapasa dharayanti. The saints, by their tapas, sustain this world. They are the people who make the world go along. A saintly life is the highest expression of eternal truth. People may discuss it, may talk about it, but only they are entitled to teach it to others who have known it for themselves and who have practised it. Vicara comes first : we must try to find out what the truth of things is. Acara must come next : we must be able to practice what we preach. Only then can we enlighten others : pracara is the third stage; vicara, acara, pracara.

In Swami Sivananda you had one who knew the truth, practised it and taught others to understand it. It is these people who represent the quintessence of our great culture. You find in the Mahabharata Yudhistra telling Vidura : Bhagavatah urthabhutah svayam prabho tirthi kurvanti urthani svantastena gadavrtah : people like you who are bhagavtas, devotees of God, those whose minds are as transparent as clear water, they make a place sacred. A urtha is not sacred because someone lived there two thousand years ago. It is sacred because today there are people who embody the teachings he left there. After all, the Ultimate Reality dwells in each individual human being : sivam atmani pasyanti na pratimasu. You know the Reality to be the inmost being of yourself. When you know that, then all other things become subordinate to the realisation of your own divinity. The greatness of our culture consists in the fact that it was catholic in its outlook. It appreciated every way of life. You find in the Bhagavata : brahmeti paramatmeti bhagavan iu sabdyate. That non-dual Reality is called Brahman, is called Paramatma, is called Bhagavan. You call It Brahman if you emphasise how It transcends this world of space and time : It is not an object among objects, It does not belong to the space and time world; It is something which transcends it; It is utterly transcendent and so mysterious and ineffable. But that does not mean that you have no access to it. Paramatmeti : if you penetrate behind the layers of your life, body, mind and intellect you find there that liquid flame of divine consciousness which animates, informs and inspires all your life. Paramatma means not the Brahman which is transcendent but the atman which is immanent in each individual soul. The transcendent Brahman becomes the immanent Paramatma. When you look upon it as Lord of the Universe, you call it Bhagvan. Brahman, Paramatma, Isvara, these three names are given to one and the same Reality. Bhagavan is not something which can be contracted into a formula - Brahma, Vishnu, Sivatmakah. You have there the powers of creation, preservation and destruction. All the three are embodied in that one Brahman. Each one of these representations has also its manifold expressions. The Gitagovinda tell us : daskriti krte krsnaye tubhyam namah. If Vishnu assumed ten avatars, so also Siva, so also everyone of them can assume manifestations and forms to help those in need, and protect them.

The world today is suffering from a secularised, a mechanised outlook. We look upon this world as paramount - the things of this world are undoubtedly necessary - but there is a superior Presence, a higher Reality without which nothing in this world can live or move or have its being. Therefore, everyone has the capacity to own the comforts and consolations which religion offers. Anyone who has no sense of religion is, to that extent, an incomplete human being. A great intellectual, a sophisticated intellectual, one day confessed that his life was incomplete because he had missed the sense of religion, the spiritual direction which is there in every human being. If that is suppressed, man becomes a narapasu, equivalent to an ordinary animal : there is nothing in him which is not possessed by the animals themselves. He must have this spiritual dimension developed in him.
Whatever the fortunes or the vicissitudes of our country may have been, if it has sustained itself all these centuries, it is because it has insisted on this spiritual direction which we should give to all our activities. Because of its comprehensive and catholic character, it has developed this hospitality of outlook, a hospitality which accepts every name of God. You find people saying Ram-Rahim are one; Krishna-Karim are one; mandhira masjid tere dham. You find there that adequacy of religious apprehension which does not say, "I possess the truth, others live in darkness". We say that all human beings, in so far as they are human, are animated by the Supreme, are never forsaken by God. Invisible arms of the Supreme sustain every individual, however wicked and unfortunate he may happen to be. No one need consider himself to be forsaken by God. Everyone is the child of the Supreme. Everyone has in him the possibilities of growing to the highest spiritual stature. There are people who say Sivo'ham, Sivo'ham, we can become perfect. That is the advice which Christian scriptures give us, "Be ye perfect even your Father in heaven is perfect". When Christ says, "I and my Father are one", he makes out an identification between the individual human soul and the Supreme Reality.
As things stand at present, there is a gulf which separates us from the Supreme. We have to struggle onward and upward. We have to raise our spirits to higher and yet higher levels until we are able to see God face to face and not as through a glass darkly. When we are able to attain that Supreme status, only then can we say that our lives have been fulfilled, kulam pavitram janani krtartha vasudhara punyavathi : when does your kula become pavitra? ; when does your janani become krthartha?; when does the place of your birth become sanctified? Apara samvit sukha sagare - when you are able to mix your mind, your consciousness, with that shoreless sea of wisdom and bliss. If in that sagara you are able to mix your own consciousness, then it is you can call yourself a fulfilled human being.
It should be the endeavour of everyone who calls himself a human being to think that his evolution is not complete; he is not yet a fulfilled human being; he has to grow upward and onward until he is able to realise God in him, until the imprisoned splendour shines through every one of his activities. That is the lesson which culture has given to us. That is the lesson which Swami Sivananda gave us, once again with renewed emphasis, through every one of his activities. It is that lesson which we have to remember every day of our lives. -- [The above article is an abstract of the speech delivered by Dr. Sarvepalli Radhkrishnan at the prayer to pay homage to the memory of Swami Sivananda at Hyderabad on 02nd August, 1963].      
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(3). OVERCOME EGO, BE HAPPY.

Who doesn't wish for happiness? Can money buy happiness? Do great achievements bring true happiness? Riches, success and achievements may bring name, fame and pride, but they do not always bring happiness. If lack of money and success creates sorrow and suffering, their possession does not give happiness either. The question then is how can you be peaceful and happy, irrespective of whether you are a success or failure in life?

Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita: "There is neither intellect nor bhavna (feeling for God) for the ayukta or the one who is not united, and to one devoid of bhavna, there is no peace. To the one without peace, how can there be happiness?" Krishna says, clearly, that unless a person is tuned into God he cannot have peace and without peace, he cannot be happy. Krishna also says that an un-united person does not have intellect.

So if you want happiness, unite with God. For this, you don't have to abandon the pursuit of riches, success and achievements. God is self-knowledge and wisdom of sameness towards all beings because all are God. An egocentric person remains alienated from wisdom that is God. If you are free from ego, you look at all beings as God and so are united to the wisdom that is God. You will be free of sorrow and will attain peace and happiness.

Krishna says that we do not have right to the fruits of action and, therefore, we should perform actions, leaving the fruits to God. How can you avoid worrying about the fruit while performing actions? When a person regards the fruits of action (success or failure) as 'mine' and performs focussed on the object, he is automatically worrying about the fruit. Moreover, in doing so, he fails to abide the law of God, which says that one does not have right to the fruits.

What you have to really do is to steady your intellect with the thought that the fruits of actions are of God. And when the fruit accrue in the form of success or failure, joy or sorrow, you have to mentally renounce the fruit to God. Since you do not contemplate the objects, you will not be attached to them. You will break the chain that starts with attachment and gives rise to desire, anger, delusion, confusion of memory, loss of intellect and death. Your intellect will become steady.

Krishna calls the wisdom of steadying your intellect by renouncing the fruits of action to God as Buddhiyoga or discipline of intellect. In this state you can be freed from constant births in different bodies. If you don't, you are bound by actions. You lose your intellect due to attachment, desire and anger and perish, only to take another birth in anew body.

To steady our intellect, we have to bring change in our thoughts. We have to remain engaged in usual actions and enjoyments as earlier but with a steady intellect fixed on the thought that all fruits of action are of God. This will free us from desire and ego, and gain eternal peace and happiness.

The same wisdom that will give peace and happiness to us will also give us Self-Realisation and make us immortal. It will lead our world to a new age where we will live in peace, happiness and oneness, realising that we are in union with God.

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(4). THE SEEDS OF KNOWLEDGE.  

One day, the head of a village approached the Buddha and asked him, "Is a Buddha compassionate to all living creatures?" Buddha replied, "Yes." The village head continued, "Does the Buddha give his teachings in full to some people and not to others?"

In response, the Buddha related a parable: "A farmer has three fields, with different kinds of soil in each - fertile, mediocre and poor. In which field do you think he would plant seeds?"

The village head replied, "He would first plant them in the fertile field. Then he would plant the rest in the one with mediocre soil. He might not sow seeds in the field with poor soil. Rather than waste seeds, he might use it to feed the animals".

The Buddha explained, "It is the same with spiritual teachings. The disciples who wish to become monks, who are seeking truth are like the fertile field. They receive the full extent of the teachings. They learn the full practice and the way to enlightenment in its entirety. The disciples come to me for light, for refuge and for shelter. So I give them the entire teachings because that is what they want".

The Buddha continued, "Lay people are like the mediocre field. They are also disciples, but they do not want to commit their whole lives to the teachings as do the monks. I give the spiritual teachings to them in entirety. They, too, come to me for light, for refuge and for shelter".

"People who do not wish to follow spiritual teachings are like the poor soil. They are involved with other pursuits in life. Yet, to these people, too, I give spiritual teachings in their entirety".

At this, the village head was surprised and said, "Why do you give your teachings out to even those who are not ready to listen? Is that not a waste"?

The Buddha replied, "If one day they grasp even one sentence of the teaching and take it to heart, that will give them happiness and blessings for a long time".

The village head understood that the Buddha had come to give his teachings to the whole world, whether or not all were ready for it, because one day they would be.

Loving and compassionate saints and mystics are spraying seeds of truth, light and love all around us. Is the soil in our field ready for it? Or will the seeds be wasted?

We can prepare the soil so that the entire teachings can be sown in us and we can achieve enlightenment. The soil can be prepared by practising daily meditation in which our mind is still and receptive to the inner light. By reducing our desires, we increase the fertility of the field to receive the spiritual gifts within. By living a life of love and service, we purify the field of weeds and make our field ready for life-giving fruit trees which all can enjoy.

As we sit in meditation, let's cultivate a field that is excellent. Prepare the soil so the soul can blossom. The best soil for the soul is one filled with love, humility, truthfulness, purity and selflessness and is cultivated with the practice of meditation on the inner light. In such a soil, the full extent of the wisdom of the saints can bear fruit and we, too, can receive enlightenment.

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(5). THE GENESIS OF SVARA.

Ancient Indians were the first to think and categorise sound into aahat and anaahat naad - struck and unstruck sound. Svara is a category of naad, but is something more. According to Matang Muni, a seventh century Indian music commentator, svara is a musical sound that glows on its own; it is sva or self plus rajari or luminous. There are those who disagree.

My question is: If a physical entity like phosphorus can glow on its own, why cannot another physical entity like sound do the same? Is it because our paradigm of properties of sound with respect to our sound apparatus doesn't allow us to experience this? Can we develop the paradigm of listening with our 'inner ear' which can also see? Is imagined sound not sound to the fore, is it not a physical expression of a non-physical phenomenon? Ancient Indians categorised such perception and expression into four: paraa, pashyanti, madhyamaa and vaikharee. Jahnava Nitai Das writes that Aum is the complete representation of the four stages of sound and their existential counterparts; sthula or physical connected to the vaikhari-shabda, sukshma or subtle connected with the pashyanti-shabda, and paraa or transcendental related to the paraa-shabda. Here shabda is sound, not word.

Going by these arguments, the ideas of svara and anaahat naad, both seem tenable. What is the birthplace of svara? The world of which we are a part cannot be separated from us and we cannot think of exclusive domains inside and outside of us. Although to French philosopher Rene Descartes, mind and matter could be explained qualitatively and quantitatively, respectively the inclusion of mind in matter and vice versa has posed a difficulty. Also, the Sankhya philosophy of Kapila Rishi says that mind and matter are not essentially different; they differ only in degrees. The seer declares that mahat, the intelligence which translates into the ego in humans, is the first manifestation of Nature. Descartes's philosophical premise, 'I think therefore I am' is curiously close to this idea, but his assumption that mind and matter are separate, is definitely a departure.

Due to the preceding discussion, I am inclined to believe in the Sankhya, and consider everything born in the mahat. Svara is a translation of musical intelligence to physical sound; from paraa to vaikhari.

Therefore, svara is a class of unmanifest anaahat naad. As paraa it makes its passage into the domain of mahat in the form of pashyanti, but is manifested in Nature when a deserving musician is ready to listen to it as madhyama. It becomes aahat naad when the musician plays her instrument or sings it as her outpouring; vaikhari for others to enjoy. Svara, therefore, carries a sublime light which is its characteristic, right from the pre-mahat stage. Being a category of naad, svara is unborn and so deathless, but we think the musician is giving birth to it. Svara is independent of the musician. When a guru trains the disciple to listen to svara, the latter is able to identify svaras in the falling rain, in the hum of a bee and in the roar of the sea. If she is unable to listen to svara, it does not mean that svara does not exist. 

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(6). GURU, GODDESS, MOTHER.

In the beginning, walking the spiritual path means following in the footsteps of those that have gone before. Indic wisdom traditions encourage apprenticeship through the guru-disciple relationship, where we set out with a map of the territory we are about to negotiate, in the company of a guide who will hopefully know enough not to let us fall into a ditch. A guide who will be the lamp that lights the way, the finger that points to the moon. And who will, when the time comes, know to let go and allow us to plunge into the unknown, on that part of the journey that only we can make, alone. The idea of a woman as guru often occurs in tandem with identification with Devi, who is also the Great Mother. Women gurus are mother and goddess, compassionate caregivers and uncompromising teachers of truth, nurturers of the life of the spirit and destroyers of what is unwholesome in the disciple's life. This triadic characterisation as guru-goddess-mother accords great power to the woman as preceptor, which she wields to accelerate the growth and evolution of her disciple's spiritual life.

It also makes for a phenomenon that doesn't quiet occur in the male sphere of spirituality, for though realised masters do become like mothers in the quality of their care and nurture, they are not accorded the added patina of goddess. The tapestry thus formed by the triple role women gurus play in their disciples' lives is unique to feminine spirituality. The woman as guru seems to dissolve her individual self into universal motherhood. To enfold everybody that comes to her, she has to be empty of the narowness of the ego-self, her heart enlarged immeasurably to include countless 'children', their problems, the paths to their wellness. For this to happen, perhaps she does need to outgrow her limited gender identity as an individual woman, and embrace her femininity to it fullest potential...

Who is to say that spiritual enlightenment can only mean a transcendence of gender; it might also be the complete fulfillment of all the potentiality hardwired into one's gender? Is woman, honed to the extremity of her womanliness, goddess? Is this the alchemy that transforms an ordinary woman into a mother-goddess? Apprenticing with a guru, where she becomes wholly responsible for one's spiritual growth and well-being, requires surrender. If the guru is mother as well, surrender becomes easier, for we have been in a situation in early childhood where we are entirely surrendered to our mother or primary caretaker. She took on the responsibility for our nurture and security so completely that when we were in her arms, the world was whole and so were we. Suffering was separation from her, and happiness was her nearness, her attentiveness.

A guru-mother seems to evoke a similar psychological space and the task of spiritual surrender doesn't seem so daunting as a result. It harks back to a lost innocence where the world was mother, and her benevolence the only bulwark that was needed against its storms. We grew up and learned otherwise. When a guru-mother holds out that same promise, primal in its call to our subconscious, we cannot but accept her invitation to turn ourselves over and allow her to mould and shape our spiritual potential. For those who were scarred by unhappy childhoods, or lack of maternal care, a guru-mother's presence could become a source of profound healing as well.

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(7). AN ANATOMY OF FANATICISM.

'My Standard is the Best' - 'My teacher is such an interesting madam', tiny Mukesh was recalling his school time to his mother. 'She teaches arithmetic and each day, she gives a different solution. Two plus two is four, she said the other day. And to day, she said, three plus one is four!' His mother smiled and smiled. Mukesh was so innocent and naive but he was speaking out a profound issue in his simple, childlike language. Like Mukesh, we too have similar problems - in different ways and areas of life. For instance, we ask, 'How could God with Form also be God without Form?' Or, 'How can same God be called by different names? If I call Him as Vishnu, how could he be Shiva? Or by some other name?' And so on.

Not only in terms of religious issues, the problem of one-sided thinking is universal in its existence. It is the problem of finding out the underlying truth behind the multiplicity of expressions, extending into diverse forms of life. We hold something as true and then fail to understand, like Mukesh, that different expressions of the same thing are laid out in different ways and methods. And this non-understanding leads to a hardened stand; we become intolerant and, ultimately, violent. Fanaticism extends to the way we eat, dress, speak, pray and what not. We want everyone to be like us! Setting ourselves as the standard of the Universe! Giving an example of this type of thinking, Swami Vivekananda quoted an encounter he had in Chicago (The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, vol. 1, p. 65):

"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". 

The same holds true of other aspects of life - food, eating habits, language, cultural beliefs and, of course, religious traditions.

Fanatics Spoil Life -  being caught in our prejudices and narrow outlooks, we spoil our lives, Swami Vivekananda said in one of his lectures (The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, vol. 1, p. 244): 

"When you come of the company of fanatics you may learn how really to love and sympathise. And the more you attain of love and sympathy, the less will be your power to condemn these poor creatures; rather you will sympathise with their faults. It will become possible for you to sympathise with the drunkard and to know that he is also a man like yourself. You will then try to understand the many circumstances that are dragging him down, and feel that if you had been in his place you would perhaps have committed suicide. I remember a woman whose husband was a great drunkard, and she complained to me of his becoming so. I replied, 'Madam, if there were twenty millions of wives like yourself, all husbands would become drunkards'. I am convinced that a large number of drunkards are manufactured by their wives. My business is to tell the truth and not to flatter anyone. These unruly women from whose minds the words bear and forbear are gone for ever, and whose false ideas of independence lead them to think that men should be at their feet, and who begin to howl as soon as men dare to say anything to them which they do not like - such women are becoming the bane of the world, and it is a wonder that they do not drive half the men in it to commit suicide. In this way, things should not go on. Life is not so easy as they believe it to be; it is a more serious business!" 

Similar is the case with men, or husbands who have lost all sense of proportion and become most unfaithful and selfish people, driving their wives to such trying situations. Sympathy and mutual understanding is what is needed to make us complete human beings. We cannot overnight change the world but a generous and open heart will make us aware of the task before us and reveal to us the way to bring change in our and others' lives. It needs evolving out of our ego-world of self-righteousness and self-centredness. Our approach should be positive, as Swami Vivekananda advised (The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, vol. 3, p. 384),

"Have faith in man first, and then having faith in him, believe that if there are defects in him, if he makes mistakes, if he embraces the crudest and the vilest doctrines, believe that it is not from his real nature that they come, but from the want of higher ideals. If a man goes towards what is false, it is because he cannot get what is true. Therefore, the only method of correcting what is false is by supplying him with what is true. Do this, and him compare. You give him the truth, and there your work is done. Let him compare it in his own mind with what he has already in him; and, mark my words, if you have really given him the truth, the false must vanish, light must dispel darkness, and truth will bring the good out. This is the way if you have really given him the truth, the false must vanish, light must dispel darkness, and truth will bring the good out. This is the way if you want to reform the country spiritually; this is the way , and not fighting, not even telling people that what they are doing is bad. Put the good before them, see how eagerly they take it, see how the divine that never dies, that is always living in the human, comes up awakened and stretches out its hand for all  that is good, and all that is glorious". 

That is the positive approach one should follow - 'Put the good before them'.
The 'Work Fanaticism': There is another kind of fanaticism which Swamiji speaks of in the context of doing good to others. Of course doing good is one of the greatest motive powers which makes human beings work. It inspires and enthuses people in many ways but this also leads to a another kind of fanaticism - the idea that we can make the world free from all evil, pain and wickedness forever! However charming this ideal may look, it is impractical and just an imagination. Says Swami Vivekananda (The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, vol. 3, p. 274), 
"Evil is everywhere; it is like chronic rheumatism. Drive it from the foot, it goes to the head; drive it from there, it goes somewhere else. It is a question of chasing it from place to place; that is all. Ay, children, to try to remedy evil is not the true way. Our philosophy teaches that evil and good are eternally conjoined, the obverse and the reverse of the same coin. If you have one, you must have the other; a wave in the ocean must be at the cost of a hollow elsewhere. Nay, all life is evil. No breath can be breathed without killing some one else; not a morsel of food can be be eaten without depriving some one of it. This is the law; that is philosophy. Therefore the only thing we can do is to understand that all this work against evil is more subjective than objective. The work against evil is more educational than actual, however big we may talk. This, first of all, is the idea of work against evil; and it ought to make us calmer, it ought to take fanaticism out of our blood. The history of the world teaches us that wherever there have been fanatical reforms, the only result has been that they have defeated their own ends. No greater upheaval for the establishment of right and liberty can be imagined than the war for the abolition of slavery in America". 
The idea of Karma is not just doing good but transforming oneself through what one does. It is not mere work but the attitude behind the work, that is the point here. Swami Vivekananda further says (The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, vol. 1, p. 116), 
"All ideas of making the world perfectly happy may be good as motive powers for fanatics; but we must know that fanaticism brings forth as much evil as good. The Karma-Yogi asks why you require any motive to work other than the inborn love of freedom. Be beyond the common worldly motives. 'To work you have the right, but not to the fruits thereof'. Man can train himself to know and to practice that, says the Karma-Yogi. When the idea of doing good becomes a part of his very being, then he will not seek for any motive outside. Let us do good because it is good to do good; he who does good work even in order to get to heaven binds himself down, says the Karma-Yogi. Any work that is done with the least selfish motive , instead of making us free, forges one more chain for our feet."