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Lesson V: Karma Yoga.327
Of course their wants are comparatively few—their tastes are always simple,
and manifest in the desire for fewer things but better ones—but they draw
their means of support to them as the tree or plant draws nourishment from
the soil, water and air. They do not pursue wealth any more than they pursue
happiness, and yet happiness comes to them unasked, and the means of
support are found at their hand. The man who has freed himself from the
entanglements of the material life, finds a keen joy in the mere living, that
the attached man never finds even in his most successful moments.
Anything, if sought as the expected source of happiness, when finally
found is seen to carry in its bosom the sting of pain. But if one ceases to
look upon the thing as the source of happiness, and regards it as simply one
of the incidents and accompaniments of life, then the poison is neutralized
and the sting is blunted. If one looks to Fame as the thing that will bring the
long sought for happiness, he will find when he becomes famous that his
success has brought with it many painful things that will kill the joy of his
attainment. But to the one who is freed and who works for the love of work
without allowing himself to be attached, Fame may come as an incident and
its pain will not be in evidence.
Many things to which men devote their entire lives bring more pain than
happiness. And this simply because men look to the thing for happiness
instead of to themselves. The moment one pins his chance of happiness to
an outside thing or person, he opens the door to pain and unhappiness.
For no outside person or thing can satisfy the longings of the soul, and the
disappointment which will come—and which must come, of necessity—from
such dependence upon person or thing, causes pain and sorrow instead of
the expected happiness.
Even Love, that noble emotion, is the source of pain to the attached
person. The Yogi Philosophy preaches the doctrine of Love—more Love—
still more Love. And yet it also teaches that when Love is selfish it brings pain
in its train. When we say we love a person, we usually mean that we wish that
person to love us, and are unhappy if that Love is denied. True love is not