One of the greatest lessons I have learned in my life is to pay as much attention to the means of work as to its end. Swami Vivekananda has been always learning great lessons from that one principle and it appears to him that all the secret of success is there. To pay as much attention to the means as to the end. Our duty to others means helping others, doing good to the world. Why should we do good to the world?
Apparently to help the world, but really to help ourselves. Do not stand on a high pedestal and take five cents in your hand and say, “Here my poor man”, but be graceful that the poor man is there, so that by making a gift to him, you are able to help yourself.
If it is not the receiver that is blessed, but it is the giver. Be thankful that you are allowed to exercise your power of benevolence and mercy in the world and thus become pure and perfect. Great work requires great and persistent effort for a long time. Neither need we trouble ourselves, if a few fail.
It is in the nature of things that many should fall, that troubles should come, that tremendous difficulties should arise, that selfishness and all the other devils in the human heart should struggle hard, when they are about to be driven out by the fire of spirituality. In doing evil, we injure ourselves and others also. In doing good, we do good to ourselves and to others as well. So if you do a good action, there is no power in the universe which can stop its bearing good results.
