— Swami Vivekananda, teaching on selfless work, Complete Works; echoes Bhagavad Gita 2.47
About this quote
हिन्दी में
कुछ मत माँगो; बदले में कुछ पाने की इच्छा मत रखो। जो देने को है, दे दो; वह लौटकर आएगा, पर अभी उसका ध्यान मत करो।
What it means
The line is usually read as saying that a good deed brings no return. It says the opposite: it will come back to you. What it forbids is not the return but the bookkeeping — holding the expected return in mind while you give. The instruction is about attention, not about outcome.
It is also modest in scope: give what you have to give, not everything you have, not what you would need to borrow. Worth keeping because it makes selflessness a checkable practice rather than a mood — you can notice, in the moment, whether you are tallying.
What it teaches you
Notice the small accounting that starts after a favour: rereading a message for a thank-you, mentioning the help later in conversation, feeling the debt go unpaid. That tracking is the thing the line names, and it begins well before resentment does. The practical test is whether you would have done the same thing if the other person were never going to know it was you.
अर्थ और सीख
यह पंक्ति यह नहीं कहती कि देने का कोई फल नहीं मिलता — वह साफ़ कहती है कि लौटकर आएगा। मना सिर्फ़ इस बात से किया गया है कि देते समय मन उस लौटने का हिसाब रखे। सीख यह है कि मदद करने के बाद जो छोटा-सा हिसाब मन में चलने लगता है — धन्यवाद मिला या नहीं, याद रखा गया या नहीं — उसी को पकड़ना है, क्योंकि वही दान को बिगाड़ता है।
Where it comes from
Karma yoga rendered as a practical instruction. It is the Gita’s teaching of acting without clinging to results (2.47), stripped of metaphysics and handed to someone about to do a favour for a friend. Note the final clause: the return may come, but thinking about it is precisely what spoils the giving.
Consistent with, and drawn from, his teaching on selfless work in the Complete Works. The Gita verse behind it is collected under The Bhagavad Gita on Letting Go.
