A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

""78 KARMA-YOGA.that what is the duty of one state of life, in onestate of circumstances, will not and cannotbe that ofanother. ,The following example will serve to illustrate this :All great teachers have taught Resist not evil,"havetaught that the non- resisting of evil is the highest moralideal. We all know that if ,in the present state of theworld, people try to carry out this doctrine, the whole socialfabric would fall to pieces, society would be destroyed, theviolent and the wicked would take possession of our property, and possibly take our lives also. Even one day ofsuch non-resistance would lead to the utter dissolution ofsociety. Yet, intuitively, in our heart of hearts we feelthe truth of the teaching, Resist not evil." This seemsto us to be the highest ideal to aim at :yet to teach thisdoctrine only, would be equivalent to condemning a vastproportion of mankind. Not only so, it would be makingmen feel that they were always doing wrong, and causescruples of conscience in relation to all their actions it;would weaken them, as that kind of constant self-disapproval and self-condemnation would breed more weaknessthan any other defect. To the man who has begun to hatehimself, the gate to degeneration has already become wideopen and this is true with whole nations as well.;Our firstduty is, then, not to hate ourselves because;to advance, we must have faith in ourselves first,and thenin God. He who has no faith in himself can never havefaith in God.Therefore the only alternative that remainsto us is to recognize that duty, morality, and all thesethings vary under different circumstances not that the;man who resists evil isdoing what is always and in itselfwrong, but that in the different circumstances in which heis placed it may become his duty to do so.