Page 27 - All India Magazine Feb-2026

principle? Krishna goes farther and declares that a man by do-
ing in the right way and in the right spirit the work dictated to
him by his fundamental nature, temperament and capacity and
according to his and its dharma can move towards the Divine.
He validates the function and dharma of the Vaishya as well as
of the Brahmin and Kshatriya. It is in his view quite possible for
a man to do business and make money and earn profits and yet
be a spiritual man, practise Yoga, have an inner life. The Gita
is constantly justifying works as a means of spiritual salvation
and enjoining a Yoga of works as well as of Bhakti and Knowl-
edge. Krishna, however, superimposes a higher law also that
work must be done without desire, without attachment to any
fruit or reward, without any egoistic attitude or motive, as an
offering or sacrifice to the Divine. This is the traditional Indian
attitude towards these things, that all work can be done if it is
done according to the dharma and, if it is rightly done, it does
not prevent the approach to the Divine or the access to spiri-
tual knowledge and the spiritual life.
CWSA 29: 248-49

A means towards spiritual perfection
There is of course also the ascetic ideal which is necessary
for many and has its place in the spiritual order. I would myself
say that no man can be spiritually complete if he cannot live
ascetically or follow a life as bare as the barest anchorite’s. Ob-
viously, greed for wealth and money-making has to be absent
from his nature as much as greed for food or any other greed
and all attachment to these things must be renounced from his
consciousness. But I do not regard the ascetic way of living as
indispensable to spiritual perfection or as identical with it. There
is the way of spiritual self-mastery and the way of spiritual self-
giving and surrender to the Divine, abandoning ego and desire

All India Magazine, February 2026 27