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.
