Work and Its Secrets

This is a small book of postcard size containing merely 10 pages but its messages are relevant and worth mentioning. It is actually a speech delivered by Swami Vivekananda at Los Angeles, California on January 4, 1900.  It was published by Advaita Ashrama, Mayavati, Almora, Himalayas. I read the second edition (1951) of this book. This book describes the secrets of work as the title of the book suggests.

The principal secret of work is: “One should pay as much attention to the means of work as to the end.”

Generally we think only of the ends of the work, we do not pay attention to the means of the work. We keep our eyes on the end and follow any path to achieve that end. But the purity of both the end and the means are needed.

This book teaches many lessons. Some of the great lessons are quoted here:

“It is the cause that produces the effect”

“Weakness is death”

“Strength is life”

“Desire is the father of all misery”

“The perfectly unselfish man is the most successful”

“Be, therefore, not a beggar, be unattached”

“The whole of life is giving”

“A river is continually emptying itself into the ocean and is continually filling up again”

“Every day we renew our determination to be unattached”

“There never has been a blow undeserved”

“If I get real control of myself, the blow will never come”

“We only get what we deserve”

“Get hold of yourself”

“We came here to sip the honey and we find our hands and feet sticking to it. We are caught though we come to catch. We come to enjoy, we are being enjoyed. We come to rule, we are being ruled. We work to get everything from nature but we find in the long run that nature takes everything from us- depletes us and casts us aside.”

“Whenever failure comes, if we analyze it critically, in 99% of cases we shall find that it was because we did not pay attention to the means.”

“If only we had power to detach ourselves at will, there would not be any misery”

“We get caught. How? Not by what we give but by what we expect. We get misery in return for our love, not from the fact that we love, but from the fact that we want love in return. There is no misery where there is no want.”

” Nothing can happen to us, unless we make ourselves susceptible to it”

“No disease can come to me until the body is ready……we get only that for which we are fitted‘’