Swami Vivekananda, in Karma Yoga, enjoins us to “work for work’s sake” (source). He writes:
“There are some who are really the salt of the earth in every country and who work for work’s sake, who do not care for name, or fame, or even to go to heaven. They work just because good will come of it. There are others who do good to the poor and help mankind from still higher motives, because they believe in doing good and love good. The motive for name and fame seldom brings immediate results, as a rule; they come to us when we are old and have almost done with life.
If a man works without any selfish motive in view, does he not gain anything? Yes, he gains the highest. Unselfishness is more paying, only people have not patience to practise it. It is more paying from the point of view of health also. Love, truth, and unselfishness are not merely moral figures of speech, but they form our highest ideal, because in them lies such a manifestation of power.”
This is Swami Vivekananda’s most powerful insight — work done selflessly is more rewarding than work done selfishly. But is it a valid insight? As with any text, these are merely words on a page, words that could have been perverted, intentionally or not, through the hands of scribes over the years. For that reason, we have to carefully examine the claims through our own experience. Is unselfishness something that we can confidently apply to our lives, or is it something that we should live more carefully, testing its truth?
In order to answer that question, we have to answer an even simpler question — what is unselfishness? At first glance, the synonym altruism comes to mind, but that doesn’t help much. Turning to the zoological definition of altruism, we find: “Instinctive behavior that is detrimental to the individual but favors the survival or spread of that individual’s genes, as by benefiting its relatives.” This is a bad definition for spiritual seekers, since unselfishness is not always constrained to one’s kin. The philosophical definition of altruism is more promising: “[An] ethical theory that regards the good of others as the end of moral action; by extension, the disposition to take the good of others as an end in itself.” This is a good working definition of unselfishness — regarding the good of others as the end of moral action.
Now, if that unselfishness is the ideal to which Swami Vivekananda inspires us, the question of why be unselfish still remains. It’s an important question to ask — unselfishness, together with love, is Vivekananda’s choice ammunition in bombarding readers with moral inspiration. Be unselfish, he says, give unto others, and pray before the Lord and the strength to continue serving will fill you. Enchanting words — but are they true? What if praying before the Lord fails to give us the strength to serve others? What if being unselfish is just self-abuse by another name? What if unselfishness is God’s illusion on humanity, testing us to see if we blindly believe what we are told by self-styled prophets?
These are important questions to ask, but not to answer — the answers to these questions are irrelevant because the value of unselfishness is self-evident. My most satisfying moments were not when I have obtained something I wanted, but when I have assisted someone successfully. This is not to say that selfish action is bad — simply that I find unselfish action more rewarding. If you are the type of person who can’t think about the welfare of others, then you are not a bad person — you are simply missing out on a more rewarding course of action. On the other end of the spectrum, if you are the type of person who is always there for other people, and you feel stretched to the limit, it is not bad to take time for yourself to recuperate. Unselfishness is desirable because it is a satisfying principle by which to live one’s life, but it need not dominate our lives. To be attached to unselfishness is dangerous — it is important that you are able to detach yourself from unselfishness.
That said, ultimately the validity of Swami Vivekananda’s insight is left to your personal experience. Even if you receive no gratitude in return, be unselfish, because you feel it is the right thing to do.
I leave you with a quote from Dr. Albert Schweitzer:
“I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.”
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