There are certain works which are, as it were, the aggregate, the sum total, of a
large number of smaller works. If we stand near the seashore and hear the
waves dashing against the shingle, we think it is such a great noise, and yet we
know that one wave is really composed of millions and millions of minute
waves. Each one of these is making a noise, and yet we do not catch it; it is
only when they become the big aggregate that we hear. Similarly, every
pulsation of the heart is work.



The majority of us cannot see beyond a few years, just as
some animals cannot see beyond a few steps. Just a little narrow circle — that
is our world. We have not the patience to look beyond, and thus become
immoral and wicked. This is our weakness, our powerlessness.


There arises a difficult question in this ideal of work. Intense activity is
necessary; we must always work. We cannot live a minute without work. What
then becomes of rest? Here is one side of the life-struggle — work, in which we
are whirled rapidly round. And here is the other — that of calm, retiring
renunciation: everything is peaceful around, there is very little of noise and
show, only nature with her animals and flowers and mountains. Neither of them
is a perfect picture. A man used to solitude, if brought in contact with the
surging whirlpool of the world, will be crushed by it; just as the fish that lives
in the deep sea water, as soon as it is brought to the surface, breaks into pieces,
deprived of the weight of water on it that had kept it together. Can a man who
has been used to the turmoil and the rush of life live at ease if he comes to a
quiet place? He suffers and perchance may lose his mind. 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




Vivekananda
Yoga Works. Vol. 1

'The elation and the excitement of the previous night had
burnt away, and a chilling reaction followed. I was very
hungry, for I had had no dinner before starting, and choco
late, though it sustains, does not satisfy. I had scarcely slept,
but yet my heart beat so fiercely and I was so nervous and
perplexed about the future that I could not rest. I thought
of all the chances that lay against me; I dreaded and de
tested more than words can express the prospect of being
caught and dragged back to Pretoria. I found no comfort in
any of the philosophical ideas which some men parade in
their hours of ease and strength and safety. They seemed
only fair-weather friends. I realised with awful force that no
exercise of my own feeble wit and strength could save me
from my enemies, and that without the assistance of that
High Power which interferes in the eternal sequence of
causes and effects more often than we are always prone to
admit, I could never succeed. I prayed long and earnestly
for help and guidance. My prayer, as it seems to me, was
swiftly and wonderfully answered.'

| Winston Churchill
Roving Commission
My Early Life