Disciple: … sir, what is the necessity at all for doing good to others?
Swamiji: Well, it is necessary for one's own good. We become forgetful of the ego when we think of the body as dedicated to the service of others -- the body with which most complacently we identify the ego. And in the long run comes the consciousness of disembodiness.
The more intently you think of the well-being of others, the more oblivious of self you become. In this way, as gradually your heart gets purified by work, you will come to feel the truth that your own Self is pervading all beings and all things.
Thus it is that doing good to others constitutes a way, a means of revealing one's own Self or Atman.
Know this also to be one of the spiritual practices, a discipline for God-realisation. Its aim also is Self-realisation.
Exactly as that aim is attained by Jnana (knowledge), Bhakti (devotion) and so on, also by work for the sake of others.
- Swami Vivekananda,
Conversations and Dialogues,
recorded by Sharat Chandra Chakravarty
Swamiji: Well, it is necessary for one's own good. We become forgetful of the ego when we think of the body as dedicated to the service of others -- the body with which most complacently we identify the ego. And in the long run comes the consciousness of disembodiness.
The more intently you think of the well-being of others, the more oblivious of self you become. In this way, as gradually your heart gets purified by work, you will come to feel the truth that your own Self is pervading all beings and all things.
Thus it is that doing good to others constitutes a way, a means of revealing one's own Self or Atman.
Know this also to be one of the spiritual practices, a discipline for God-realisation. Its aim also is Self-realisation.
Exactly as that aim is attained by Jnana (knowledge), Bhakti (devotion) and so on, also by work for the sake of others.
- Swami Vivekananda,
Conversations and Dialogues,
recorded by Sharat Chandra Chakravarty
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