The secret of success is work & more work

Swami Rama Tirtha

The underlying secret of a lamp’s lustre and splendour is that it spares not its wick and oil. The wick and oil or the little Self is being constantly consumed and glory is the natural consequence. There it is, the lamp says, spare yourself and you will be immediately extinguished.If you seek ease and comfort for your bodies and waste your time in sensual pleasures and luxury, there is no hope for you. Inactivity, in other words, would bring death to you, and activity and activity alone is life. Look at the stagnant pond and the running stream. The crystal water of the rustling river is ever fresh, clear, drinkable and attractive. But on the other hand see how disgusting, odorous, filthy, dirty, stinking and stenching is the water of the stagnant pond.

If you wish to succeed, follow the line of action, the constant motion of a river. There is no hope for a man who would waste his wick and oil by preserving it from consumption. Follow the policy of a river, ever progressing, ever assimilating, ever adapting itself to the environments and ever performing work, ever performing work is the first principle of success. If you work on this principle, you will see that “It is as easy to be great as to be small.”

Students know that when they are speaking in their literary societies, the moment the idea “I lecture” comes into prominence within their mind, the speech is marred. Forget your little self in work and entirely throw yourself into it, you will succeed. If you are thinking, become thought itself, you shall succeed. If you are working, become work itself, and thus alone you shall succeed.

Utility of cooperation

Cooperation is nothing but superficial manifestation of love. You hear so much about the utility of cooperation, and Rama needs hardly enlarge upon it. Let that proceed from your innate love. Be love and you are successful. A merchant who does not look upon his customers’ interests as his own, cannot succeed. In order to prosper he must love his customers. He is to observe them with his whole heart.Another factor that plays a very important part is cheerfulness. Be not anxious as to the reward of your labours, mind not the future, have no scruples, think not of success and failure. Work for work’s sake. Work is its own reward. Without dejection at the past and without anxiety as to the future—work, work, work in the living present. This spirit will keep you cheerful under all circumstances. To a living seed must be attracted by an inviolable law of affinity all that it requires of air, water, earth, etc., to fructify. So does Nature promise every kind of help to a cheerful active worker.

“The way to more light is the faithful use of what we have.” If in a dark night you are to travel a distance of twenty miles and the light in your hand shows only up to ten feet, think not of the whole way being unilluminated, but walk up the distance that is already lighted; and ten more feet will of themselves be illuminated. So a real earnest worker by a necessary law encounters no obscure ground in his course. Why then damp our cheerful spirits by uneasiness about the future?

Excerpted from a lecture delivered on October 7, 1902, at the
High Commercial College, Tokyo, Japan. The 145^th birth anniversary of Swami Rama Tirtha will be observed on October 22