A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

"TheKARMA-YOGA. 83duties are allotted. No one of these stagesof life issuperior to the uother ;the life of the married man is quitebut hasa;*great as that of the man who is not married,devoted himself to some worthy work. The king on histhrone is as great and glorious as the scavenger in thestreet.Take him off his throne, make him do the work ofthe scavenger and see how he fares. Take up thescavenger and see how he will rule. It is useless to saythat the man who lives out of the world is a greater manthan he who lives in the world ;it is much more difficultto live in the world and worship God, than to give up theworld and live a free and easy life of rest and retirement.The various stages of life have become shortened in Indiato two, that of the householder and then of the preacher.The householder marries and carries on his duties as acitizen, and the duties of the other are to preach and toworship God. Now youwill see whose life is the moredifficult one. As I read on to you a few beautifulpassages from the Maha-Nirvana-Tantra, which treats ofthis subject, youwill see that it is a very difficult task fora man to be a householder, and perform all his dutiesperfectly.householder should be devoted to God ;theknowledge of God should be his goal of life. Yet he mustwork constantly, performall his duties ;whatever he doeshe must give it up to God."It is the most difficult thing to do in this world, towork and not care for theresult, to help a man and neverthink that he ought to be grateful to you, to do some goodwork and at the same time never look to see whether itbrings you name or fame, or brings nothing at all. Eventhe most arrant coward becomes a brave man when theworld begins to praise him. A fool can do heroic