Swami Vivekananda in London 2 - Duty vs. Love

Translated from "London e Vivekananda" by Mahendranath Datta

Duty is driven by responsibility assigned, it can be enforced. [Duty means literally that which is due from me]. Therefore a slave has to perform its duty. A duty is duty, they say and therefore all ethical and moral person think its best to perform one's duty to the best of one's ability. In many cases duty forces one to do reprehensible acts, an acts one would not have done had one been free from sense of duty, a fact that is evident when police or other state actors perform their "duty", however heinous it may be, under order or compulsion. Many Nazis justified their act of killing Jews as "done under order", for the sake of duty. So a duty as an expression represents slavery. Swami Vivekananda in one of his lectures said that there can be different thought process espoused by the ancient Indians. There is no equivalent word of duty in Sanskrit, Kartavyam is not duty, but rather responsibility. Vritti is not duty, but profession. 

Love on the other hand is Self expansion or Self emanation. It is the expression of the ego or self through work or a substance. That is why all beings try for accomplishing that work or attaining that substance. We love ourselves, therefore wherever there is possibility of self fulfillment and self expression, we love that. That is why we love to do something that gives us a room for expansion of self through power, respect, name, fame, fortune and also knowledge and wisdom. Duty is often used in the sense of trade, I do this as duty and I expect something in return. That is the Western sense. The Hindu sense for incentive to action is to obtain what is perceived as reflection of one's own self. A mother goes to protect a child not for the sense of duty, but for the sake of love. Duty has a commercial sense - dealing with inert matter. Any action driven by love and not mere sense of duty is however lively, because of the expression of the self, expansion of consciousness through it. This becomes a much better and efficient way of doing things as any action driven by love is bound to be done in a better fashion, with sincerity, dedication. We don't need to enforce something on an unwilling soul by giving better pills in the forms of statements like "Duty is duty". Rather we encourage the soul to give expression to his or her own inherent nature and follow a course of action most suitable for the occasion. That enables him or her to perform with heart and soul, in the most willing and lively manner, to express his or her own self in whatever he or she does.