Karma Yoga
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text · 1 illegible passages, excluded from answers
- Extent:
- ~40,000 words · 190 passages
Cite this work
- APASwami Vivekananda. (n.d.). Karma Yoga. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/swami-vivekananda/karma-yoga
- MLASwami Vivekananda. "Karma Yoga." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/swami-vivekananda/karma-yoga.
- ChicagoSwami Vivekananda. Karma Yoga. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/swami-vivekananda/karma-yoga.
What it is about
Karma Yoga: the path of selfless action.
Context and history
Lectures given in New York in 1895–96. Vivekananda argues that withdrawal from the world is not required: liberation can be reached through work, if the work is done without attachment to its result. It is Vedanta explained to Westerners who went to the office every day.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
Based on lectures the Swami delivered in his rented rooms at 228 W 39th Street in December, 1895 and January, 1896. The classes were free of charge. Generally the Swami held two classes daily- morning and evening. Although the Swami delivered many lectures and held numerous classes in the two years and five months he had been in America, these lectures constituted a departure in the way they were recorded. Just prior to the commencement of his Winter -95-96 season in NYC, his friends and supporters aided him by advertising for and ultimately hiring a professional stenographer: The man selected, Joseph Josiah Goodwin, later became a disciple of the Swami and followed him to England and India. file:///CI/Documents%20and%20Settings/Chitra%20Selv...ivekananda/BooksBySwami/KarmaYoga/KarmaYogaPDF.html (1 of 88)2/25/2007 9:26:35 PM Karma Yoga Goodwin's transcriptions of the Sw ami's lectures form the basis of five books. chapter! Karma in its effect on character file:///CI/Documents%20and%20Settings/Chitra%20Selv...ivekananda/BooksBySwami/KarmaYoga/KarmaYogaPDF.html (2 of 88)2/25/2007 9:26:35 PM Karma Yoga The word Karma is derived from the Sanskrit Kri, to do; all action is Karma. Technically, this word also means the effects of actions. In connection with metaphysics, it sometimes means the effects, of which our past actions were the causes. But in Karma-Yoga we have simply to do with the word Karma as meaning work. 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. After a time man finds that it is not happiness, but knowledge, towards which he is going, and that both pleasure and← Back to Swami Vivekananda