The big firms of dress makers set the fashions nowadays. We can form no idea of the millions of pounds that are spent every year in the making of dress in the West. The dress making business has become a regular science. What color of dress will suit with the complexion of the girl and the color of her hair, what special feature of her body should be disguised, and what displayed to the best advantage--these and many other like important points, the dress makers have seriously to consider. Again, the dress that ladies of very high position wear, others have to wear also, otherwise they lose their caste! This is "fashion."
From "The East and the West," originally written in Bengali. Complete Works, 5.468.
The Westerners do not stop at the mere acquisition of the objects of enjoyment, but in all their actions they seek for a sort of beauty and grace. In eating and drinking, in their homes and surroundings, in everything, they want to see an all-round elegance.
From "The East and the West," originally written in Bengali. Complete Works, 5.474.
The life of each nation has a moral purpose of its own, and the manners and customs of a nation must be judged from the standpoint of that purpose. The Westerners should be seen through their eyes; to see them through our eyes, and for them to see us through theirs--both these are mistakes.
From "The East and the West," originally written in Bengali. Complete Works, 5.514.
It is a most difficult thing to give up is the clinging to this universe; few ever attain to that. There are two ways to do that: one way is called neti neti ("not this, not this"), the other is called iti iti ("this, this"). The former is the negative, the latter is the positive way.
The negative way is the most difficult. It is only possible to people of the very highest, exceptional minds and gigantic wills who simply stand up and say, "No, I will not have this," and the mind and body obey their will, and they come out successful. But such people are rare.
The vast majority choose the positive way, the way through the world, making use of all the bondages themselves to break those very bondages. This is also a kind of giving up; only it is done slowly and gradually, by knowing things, enjoying things and thus obtaining experience, and knowing the nature of things until the mind lets them all go at last and becomes unattached.
The former way of obtaining non-attachment is by reasoning, and the latter way is through work and experience. The first is the path of Jñāna Yoga, the second is that of Karma Yoga.
Class on Karma Yoga. New York, January 10, 1896. Complete Works, 1.97.
A current rushing down of its own nature falls into a hollow and makes a whirlpool and, after running a little in that whirlpool, it emerges again in the form of the free current to go on unchecked. Each human life is like that current. It gets into the whirl, gets involved in this world of space, time and causation, whirls round a little, crying out, "my father, my brother, my name, my fame," and so on, and at last emerges out of it and regains its original freedom. The whole universe is doing that.
Whether we know it or not, whether we are conscious or unconscious of it, we are all working to get out of the dream of the world. Our experience in the world is to enable us to get out of its whirlpool.
Class on Karma Yoga. New York, January 10, 1896. Complete Works, 1.98-99.
What is karma yoga? It is the knowledge of the secret of work. We see that the whole universe is working. ... Instead of being knocked about in this universe, and after long delay and thrashing, getting to know things as they are, we learn from karma yoga the secret of work, the method of work, the organizing power of work.
Class on Karma Yoga. New York, January 10, 1896. Complete Works, 1.99.
