Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
Volume 2
Work and its Secret
The Powers of the Mind
Hints on Practical Spirituality
Bhakti or Devotion
Jnana-Yoga
Practical Vedanta and other lectures
Reports in American Newspapers
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WORK AND ITS SECRET
(Delivered at Los Angeles, California, January 4, 1900)
One of the greatest lessons I have learnt in my life is to pay as much attention
to the means of work as to its end. He was a great man from whom I learnt it,
and his own life was a practical demonstration of this great principle I have
been always learning great lessons from that one principle, and it appears to me
that all the secret of success is there; to pay as much attention to the means as
to the end.
Our great defect in life is that we are so much drawn to the ideal, the goal is so
much more enchanting, so much more alluring, so much bigger in our mental
horizon, that we lose sight of the details altogether.
But whenever failure comes, if we analyse it critically, in ninety-nine per cent
of cases we shall find that it was because we did not pay attention to the means.
Proper attention to the finishing, strengthening, of the means is what we need.
With the means all right, the end must come. We forget that it is the cause that
produces the effect; the effect cannot come by itself; and unless the causes are
exact, proper, and powerful, the effect will not be produced. Once the ideal is
chosen and the means determined, we may almost let go the ideal, because we
are sure it will be there, when the means are perfected. When the cause is there,
there is no more difficulty about the effect, the effect is bound to come. If we
take care of the cause, the effect will take care of itself. The realization of the
ideal is the effect. The means are the cause: attention to the means, therefore, is
the great secret of life. We also read this in the Gita and learn that we have to
work, constantly work with all our power; to put our whole mind in the work,
whateve