CHAPTER I  (p.3-11)
Karma in its effect on character

Summary:

Quote: page 3. The goal of mankind is knowledge. That is the one ideal placed before us by Eastern philosophy. Pleasure is not the goal of man, but knowledge. Pleasure and happiness come to an end. It is a mistake to suppose that pleasure is the goal. The cause of all the miseries we have in the world is that men foolishly think pleasure to be the ideal to strive for.

Quote: page 4. All knowledge that the world has ever received comes from the mind; the infinite library of the universe is in our own mind.

Quote: page 11. [Who is the Ideal Man?]
The ideal man is he who, in the midst of the greatest silence and solitude, finds the intensest activity, and in the midst of the intensest activity finds the silence and solitude of the desert. He has learnt the secret of restraint, he has controlled himself. He goes through the streets of a big city with all its traffic, and his mind is as calm as if he were in a cave, where not a sound could reach him; and he is intensely working all the time. That is the ideal of Karma-Yoga, and if you have attained to that, you have really learnt the secret of work.

 

 

CHAPTER II   p.12-27
"Each is great in his own place"

Summary:

 

 

 

CHAPTER III   p.28-38
The secret of work

Summary:

Quote: page 28. Spiritual knowledge is the only thing that can destroy our miseries forever; any other knowledge satisfies wants only for a time.

 

 

 

CHAPTER IV   p.39-47
What is duty?

Summary:

Quote: page 43. We hear much about brutal husbands all over the world and about the impurityof men, but is it not true that there are quite as many brutal and impure women as men?

 

 

 

CHAPTER V   p.48-56
We help ourselves, not the world

Summary:

Quote: page 48.Philosophy of course is the essence of every religion; mythology explains and illustrates it by means of the more or less legendary lives of great men, stories and fables of wonderful things, and so on; ritual gives to that philosophy a still more concrete form, so that every one may grasp it — ritual is in fact concretised philosophy. This ritual is Karma; it is necessary in every religion, because most of us cannot understand abstract spiritual things until we grow much spiritually. .. symbols are of great help, and we cannot dispense with the symbolical method of putting things before us. From time immemorial symbols have been used by all kinds of religions. In one sense we cannot think but in symbols; words themselves are symbols of thought. In another sense everything in the universe may be looked upon as a symbol. The whole universe is a symbol, and God is the essence behind.

Quote: page 49. Language is not the result of convention; it is not that people ever agreed to represent certain ideas by certain words; there never was an idea without a corresponding word or a word without a corresponding idea; ideas and words are in their nature inseparable.

Quote: page 50. The study and practice of these things [rituals and symbology ] form naturally a part of Karma-Yoga.

Quote: page 51. The world does not require our help ... Helping others is only helping ourselves.
...to go out and help others is, therefore, the best thing we can do, although in the long run, we shall find that helping others is only helping ourselves.

Quote: page 52. [A parble about fire.] ... When it warms us it is good; when it burns us it is bad. According as we use it, it produces in us the feeling of good or bad; so also is the world.

Quote: page 56. I am prepared to go any distance to see the face of that man who can really make a distinction between the sin and the sinner. It is easy to say so. If we can distinguish well between quality and substance, we may become perfect men.

 

 

 

CHAPTER VI   p.57-69
Non-attachment is complete self-abnegation

Summary:

Quote: page 57. we can act and react upon each other ... when I am doing a certain action, my mind may be said to be in a certain state of vibration; all minds which are in similar circumstances will have the tendency to be affected by my mind. If there are different musical instruments tuned alike in one room, all of you may have noticed that when one is struck, the others have the tendency to vibrate so as to give the same note. [vibration of our mind affects everyone in the universe who are in a similar state of vibration. This perhaps explains a mechanism for the collective unconscious.]

Quote: page 58. [In doing good or evil we do good or evil to ourselves and others and the forces of good and evil also gather strength from outside.]

Quote: page 58. According to Karma-Yoga, the action one has done cannot be destroyed until it has born fruit; no power in nature can stop it from yielding its results.

Quote: page 59. ... howsoever we may try, there cannot be any action which is perfectly pure, or any which is perfectly impure, taking purity and impurity in the sense of injury and non-injury...
There is no acion which does not bear good and evil fruits at the same time.
[He expresses a fatalism here. This is the importance of 'binding the negative.']

Quote: page 60. We have already seen that in helping the world we help ourselves. The main effect of work done for others is to purify ourselves. By means of the constant effort to do good to others we are trying to forget ourselves; this forgetfullness of self is theone great lesson we have to learn inlifed.

Quote: page 60. ...true happiness consists in killing selfishness and that no one can make him [man] happy except himself.

Quote: page 61. The highest ideal is eternal and entire self-abnegation, where there is no "I", but all is "Thou", and whether he is conscious or unconscious of it, Karma-Yoga leads man to that end.

Quote: page 61. [Classes of men:
1. God-men;
2. Good men who do to others so long as it does not hurt themselves;
3. Do good to themselves and injure others;
4. Injure others for injury's sake.]

Quote: page 62. ... all mankind stand in reverence and awe before the man who is ready to sacrifice himself for others.

Quote: page 69. Are you unselfish? That is the question. If you are, you will be perfect without reading a single religious book, without going into a single church or temple.

 

 

 

CHAPTER VII   p.70-83
Freedom

Summary:

Quote: page 70. In addition to meaning work, we have stated that psychologically the word Karma also implies causation. Any work, any action, any thought that produces an effect is called a Karma. Thus the law of Karma means the law of causation, of inevitable cause and sequence.

Quote: page 71. This universe is only a part of infinite existence, thrown into a peculiar mould, composed of space, time, and causation. It necessarily follows that law is possible only within this conditioned universe; beyond it there cannot be any law.

 

 

 

CHAPTER VIII   p.84-94
The ideal of Karma-Yoga

Summary:

Quote: page 84. All religions and all methods of work and worship lead us to one and the same goal.

 

 

 

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