A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

""ToiMY MASTER.,7work on, even if the whole world wants to crush youdown ? Ars you sure you know what you want, and willperform your duty, and that alone, even if life isyourat stake ? Are you sure that you will persevere so long aslifeendures, so long as one pulsationin the heart willlast ? Then you are a real reformer, you are a teacher, amaster, a blessing to mankind But man is so impatient,!so short-sighted! He has not the patienceto wait, he hasnot the power to see. He wants to rule, he wants resultsthe fruitsimmediately. Why? He wants to reaphimself, and does not really care for others. Duty forduty s sake is not what he wants. work you havethe right, but not to the fruits thereof," says Krishna.Why cling to results ? Ours are the duties. Let the fruitstake care of themselves. But man has no patience,hetakes up any scheme and the larger number of would-bereformers all over the world, can be classed under thisheading.As I have said, the idea of reform came tp India whenit seemed as if the wave of materialism that had invadedher shores would sweep away the teachings of the sages,But the nation had borne the shocks of a thousand suchwaves of change. This one was mild in comparison. Waveafter wave had flooded the land, breaking and crushingeverything for hundreds of years the sword had; flashed,"and Victory unto Allah had rent the skies of India, butthese floods subsided, leaving the national ideals unchanged.The Indian nation cannot be killed. Deathless it standsand it will stand so long as that spirit shall remain as the( backgrpund, so long as her people do not give up theirspirituality.Beggars they may remain, poor and povertystricken;dirt and squalor may surround them perhaps