At work printing books in Ramagiri.
Thank you for your inspiring reflections on last week’s reading from the Spring 2019 Blue Mountain Journal “The Purpose of Work”! We’re continuing our conversation as a community on cultivating a new understanding of work as an opportunity to attain wisdom and deepen our practice by reducing self-will.
This week we’re diving into Part 2 of Easwaran’s article “Work: A Chance to Grow” to continue our exploration of the profundity hidden in the routines of daily working life, in the home or outside of it. After reviewing the article, please share your reflections in the comments section below. Is there one practical thing you can experiment with this week while you work?
Please feel free to share a line or two that really stood out to you, or write any thoughts or questions that arose. Your contributions inspire all of us and we appreciate reading them!
Making ourselves whole
It is helpful to keep each of these three aspects in mind — attention, detachment, and the job at hand. But before I comment on them, I want to emphasize that they are really not separate. They are three elements of a single skill. When you dedicate yourself to the task at hand with complete concentration and without any trace of egotistic involvement, you are learning to live completely in the present. You are making yourself whole, undivided, which is the goal of the spiritual life and the meaning of that much-misunderstood word yoga.
In reality, all these three amount to unifying our attention. We don’t usually think in these terms, but when we ignore responsibilities, we are actually dividing our attention. When we postpone or neglect a task that needs doing, we are dividing attention. When we do a job halfheartedly, we are dividing attention. Even when we get personally entangled in our activities, we are dividing our attention. And if “dividing attention” sounds abstract, let me assure you it is utterly practical. When we divide our attention, we split ourselves, which weakens everything we do. In this sense, perhaps the simplest expression of our goal in meditation is that we are trying to make ourselves whole.
With this in mind, let me offer a few practical suggestions from my own experience.
Our context is our chance to grow
First, when the Gita talks about doing our best with the job at hand, it is talking about responsibilities — duties. “Duty” is not a very popular word today, so it is important to understand what it means for a spiritual aspirant. From the perspective of meditation, everything life sets before us can be seen as an educational opportunity — a chance to grow.
Every station in life — partner, parent, student, professional, retired person — has its characteristic responsibilities, which the Gita calls our own personal dharma. Other people’s lives may appear more attractive, more creative, even more “spiritual,” but we can never grow spiritually, the Gita says, until we attend to our own duties first.
If we accept that responsibility, we grow spiritually; if we shun it or ignore it, the lesson will go unlearned, and we will have to face the same kind of responsibility again — often when the burden is greater.
So don’t ever compare yourself with others, saying things like “If only I had that person’s job.” Jealousy can be terrible anywhere, but it is especially terrible in work. It not only separates people; it actually sets you back in your spiritual growth.
We are where we are, doing what we are doing, because we have something to learn from that particular context. What and who we are — all that we have thought, done, and desired, our upbringing and our education — has brought us to that job and to those co-workers, and that makes it just the situation we need to grow.
With growth will come a new context to work in, new people, new challenges, greater opportunities for service. What is the right occupation now may not be right later on, but as long as it is not at the expense of others, our job or profession can be made part of our contribution to life.
Give more attention
Second, over time, every job becomes routine. For a year or two everything seems new; every task presents an interesting challenge. But after a few years, it’s “Oh, another patient, another client, another performance, another report.” New things have a way of becoming old; new hats become old hat; everything becomes passé. That’s the way life is: as Ecclesiastes observed thousands of years ago, there is nothing new under the sun.
Most of us are good at doing the jobs we like, but a necessary part of the spiritual life is to be able to do the things we do not like. Life has a subtle way of ferreting out what we do not like and sticking it right under our nose, where we cannot ignore or escape it. One of the laws of life is that when you do not dislike anything, only the things you like come your way, whereas if you dislike a job and quit, the next job will be even worse.
The answer is not to change jobs, drop out, or walk away, but to give more attention and do the very best we can. Interest does not lie in the job; it is a function of the attention we give. With complete attention, everything in life becomes fresh.
There is no job without some drudgery, conflicts, unpleasantness, and a certain amount of plain slogging to get the work done. Therefore, the Gita says, don’t ask, “Is this interesting? Is this exciting?” If a job is exciting today, it’s going to be depressing later. Ask if you are part of work that benefits people. If you are, give it your best.
Doing a routine job well, with concentration, is the greatest challenge I can imagine. You’re not just doing a job but learning a skill: the skill of improving concentration, which pays rich dividends in every aspect of life.
Work as service to others
Finally, in attending to the task at hand, the Gita urges us never to get attached to personal pleasure or profit. Whatever the job, do it as a service to others. Don’t do it to gain credit or prestige or to win attention.
To give in this spirit, we must develop the capacity not to get caught in any of our actions. When we get caught in our own job, our own interests, we lose our discrimination and forget the real purpose of life.
One of the ways we get caught in our actions is by bringing our work home, from our job, our campus, or our factory. We do not have to put it in a briefcase to bring it home; we carefully store it in our minds where we can dwell on it all the time. We get stuck in a particular groove, and that handicaps our performance; eventually we can’t do the job well, we can’t see that we aren’t doing it well, and we can’t let go of it. We get so entangled in one particular aspect that we forget all other aspects — forget, for example, that people are waiting, or that bills are piling up.
When you leave your office, leave your work there. Another good exercise is to learn to drop what you are doing and shift your attention to something else when the situation demands. This capacity comes after a long time of striving to concentrate on the job at hand.
Train the mind to be detached
Through many, many years of unremitting effort based on the practice of meditation, we can train the mind to be detached from every attempt to cling for security to anything outside. That’s what detachment means: you need nothing from anything or anyone outside you; you are complete.
This advice applies also to personal ambition. To most of us today, excellence without personal ambition seems a contradiction. From the Gita’s perspective, however, you can’t have one and keep the other.
The key word here is “personal.” I am terribly ambitious where the world is concerned, but I would suggest that none of us try to be ambitious where our own small self is concerned. If we can forget ourselves and give full attention to the job at hand, we cannot help but excel.
Work always in harmony
How we work, therefore, is as important as what we do. Your job may be nothing more glamorous than a janitor in a hospital, but if you are following right occupation and doing your best to put the welfare of those around you first, you will be contributing to other people’s lives, even though you may not see it happening. These are spiritual laws.
In the language of the Gita, work done in this spirit is an offering to the Lord who pervades the universe, who is in my heart and yours. If we grasp this great truth — that the Lord lives in each and every one of us, regardless of who we are — we will never be discourteous to others, we will never be unkind, we will never try to avoid people, we will always be glad to work in harmony with those around us. Then it becomes impossible to quarrel, to be angry, to hurt others, to move away.
This doesn’t mean weakening your convictions or diluting your principles. Disagreeing without being disagreeable is one of the arts of civilized living. This is what Gandhi means by nonviolence, and he calls it the most active force in the world. You don’t retaliate, you don’t retire; you just stand where you are, firmly rooted — rooted in wisdom, rooted in love, unshakably kind in the face of criticism, opposition, calumny, or slander.
I feel very deeply, but I never use an unkind word. I have very strong convictions, but I never express them in language that would be harmful. I think it is Gandhi who pointed out that those who get angry when opposed or contradicted have no faith in themselves. When you have faith in your convictions, you won’t get angry. I can listen to opposition with sympathy, and yet I will stand by my own convictions whatever the opposition is.
Our real job is to be kind
This is the most demanding way of life that can be presented to any human being — and in terms of giving our best to the job at hand, the Gita would maintain that everyone’s real job is to be kind. Nothing we do could have a more beneficial influence on those around us than remaining calm and considerate in the midst of ups and downs.
When people are impolite to you, that’s the time to be exceptionally polite. When people are discourteous to you, that’s the time to be more courteous. By your continuing courtesy and kindness, you are educating that person. Character is a continuing process; personality is being formed continuously. Therefore, it can be changed. It can be improved. It can be ennobled. And almost all of life, at home, at work, or even at play, provides opportunities for us not only to improve our own character, but — by our example — to encourage others to improve too.
That is why I say, be patient with your partner, your co-workers, and your friends. It is love that is more important — the harmony of the home, the harmony of the workplace, the harmony of your life. This gives us a challenging career that lasts a lifetime, with opportunities for spiritual growth every single day.