"He who does not work, cannot rest."

The Master is an object of possession of which a true abhyasi can never be dispossessed. The physical frame of Master has been adopted by Him to prove to us that He exists. It is a creation of His to make known to us His presence, and to invite us to go to Him for help and guidance. Once we possess Him we can never lose Him. It is up to us to tie Him to ourselves so closely that we can never be parted from Him unto all eternity.

What is His Mission? It is that of creating a New World of a spiritual order where all creation can live a spiritual life in peace and tranquillity under His blessing, and in His benign presence. Such is His Mission. So when we take His Mission and make it ours, we participate in His work and by doing so we become, in degrees, more and more like Him. Perfection in the work done can alone make this possible. Making the Master mine is not enough. The Master's Mission has also to be accepted as mine. Why? Because without a mission, the Master would not be here with us! Such a personality does not Grace this world of ours without purpose. Therefore the Master is not separate from His Mission. In a sense He is His Mission! Hence in accepting Him, we have to accept His work too as ours. This is seen to be inevitable!

Attitude towards work
Humility in one's inner attitude, forcefulness in one's work, and faith in the Master; these three should be combined in our attitude towards our work. Humility does not mean shyness or self-effacement. My Master used to say that if you are having faith in Him, if you have courage in yourself, confidence in the work and absolute unshakable will power, in some way they operate like the four fingers of the hand, you see, the fifth being the Master Himself.

Everything that we do, if we do in the consciousness that this is the Master who is working, we don't exist and therefore there can be no arrogance, no pride, nothing in us. If we work in the consciousness that it is the Master who is working, we cease to exist. Then how can you be proud or humble? So we achieve that state where we transcend both the opposites. So, of such a person you cannot say that he is humble or he is proud. He is what he is. And that is what his Master made him.

So I would like all of you to think of this and step forward in the Master's work. Because work done for the Master cannot in any way harm us. The work of the Master done in His remembrance cannot in any way spoil our character. The work of the Master done with faith in the Master can never be a failure. And the work of the Master done with the will of the Master working through us must have results, as He wanted them to have.

In such a way do we become perfect workers for the Master, able to achieve perfect results for humanity, without our having any consciousness that we are doing something or achieving something. To my mind the greatest benefit is this: that failure or the idea of failure can never affect us.

Work while you work, and play while you play
How can you be a slave of your own thoughts? How can you be a slave of activity? "No, no, I have to work. Without work, I don't feel happy." Work ethic they call it - beautiful term - work ethic. I call it work addiction. Some people call it work alcoholism or workaholism. It is no use working when you should not be working, when you need not work. We are beings who have a will, who have a mind, who have an intelligence, who must know when to work, when not to work, when to think, when not to think.

In the West, doing and working are more or less synonymous - "I am doing something" means I am working, and the work is supposed to be result-oriented, satisfaction-oriented, growth-oriented. But I don't think in the East we are so self-centred about work. In the Occident, when we talk about growth-orientation and progress-orientation and result-orientation, you work from a self-centred basis. I think in spirituality, the work is from a centred basis - no more self-centred basis, but just centred basis - the centre, the spiritual centre. So when we meditate, when we involve ourselves in spiritual sadhana, spiritual practice, it is certainly a centred practice, and in that sense it is evolutionary - evolution-oriented. But it is not satisfaction-oriented. It is not growth-oriented. Nor is it self-oriented.

"Work while you work, and play while you play." The meaning of the sentence seems to be self evident, and if someone claimed that it had deeper implications than its superficial meaning, people would tend to laugh at him. Don't we all work when we are working, and don't we play when we are playing? This would be the question that any one of us would automatically ask: if we were to deny it, they would be annoyed. It is the very simplicity of this old saw that hides its deeper meaning so vital for its true understanding. Simplicity seems to be the greatest deceiver of all.

A little self-examination shows that we are often not working when we are at work. We are merely at our place of work. The work lies before us, waiting to be done. But Alas! our minds are elsewhere. The mind may be far away on a projected holiday. It may be on a distant play-field following an unseen match with the mind's eye of imagination. It may be at home worrying about a sick person. Or it may merely be indulging in gorgeous flights of unfettered fantasy. But at work it certainly is not. So what happens to "work while you work?" It is a difficult thing to accept, but it is too general to avoid attracting attention. I dare say that no individual exists who has not, at one time or another caught himself in this activity of not working while at work.

The play situation is not much different. Perhaps more people really play when they are playing, but here too we find persons have their minds and attention elsewhere than upon the activity at hand. So play ceases to be the recreation and relaxation that it should be, and was designed to be. We find therefore that neither our work hours nor our play hours are fully productive of the gains and values that they should produce for us if properly participated in.

How is this relevant to spirituality? Every abhyasi has undoubtedly found in his own experience that while he is supposed to be meditating, his mind is wandering where it likes. When he becomes aware of this, the mind is brought back to meditation. This is true of a majority of abhyasis. But there are abhyasis who let their minds wander because it is such a pleasant thing to do. Such persons only think they are meditating. Actually the mind has been let loose to wander at will. Is it any surprise that such abhyasis progress slowly, and some even don't progress at all? If they really meditated when they are supposed to be meditating, results must follow 'as the night, the day' as the saying goes.

Not satisfied with thus ruining their meditation hour, they destroy their working hours by worrying about lack of progress on the spiritual path. I have found this with quite a large number of abhyasis, who speak of every thing other than Sahaj Marg when they come for sittings, and speak of nothing but spirituality when they should be at work. A queer but often tragic inversion.

When Master is in Madras, I have often been tempted to go late to my office. But he would invariably chase me out of the house at 9 A.M., saying, "You must now go to your office. Work is more important than wasting your time here with me. If I want you I shall ask someone to call you." I used to try to stay on, but he would never allow it. He was quite definite that during work hours, the abhyasis should be at work. Is this not exactly what the school lesson says? And it is precisely what Master teaches us, both by precept and practice.

I have often wondered at the concentration with which he works. It is total. One can see the same attention given even to eating. When he eats he thinks only of the activity of the moment. Dinnertime is no time for idle talk or laughter or even for serious discussion. Dinnertime is for eating. An important lesson I have learnt from my Master is that anything that is worth doing must be done with 100% attention. Nothing less will suffice. This is true dedication.

We all take up abhyas as a sort of game. And so we don't benefit to the extent that we should. If we take it up as work, work upon ourselves, and set to it with 100% attention it must yield 100% results. Then we will see that a brief hour or two of 'work' upon ourselves converts long and dreary hours of daily work to 'play.' Advanced abhyasis of Sahaj Marg have invariably wondered at the sudden and immense capacities that seem to flow into them which makes it possible for their regular work to be done more and more efficiently in less and less time. A stage comes when an abhyasi can say truthfully, and with confidence that his work is but child's play. When is this possible? Only when we really work when we are expected to work, and really meditate when we are supposed to be meditating.

We listen to a great deal of what Master says but we don't hear him. We observe him hour after hour, day after day, but as Master himself says, rather sadly, "Everyone comes to see me but nobody really sees me." Why? Precisely because when we are listening to him speaking, the mind is elsewhere thinking of something else. And when we are looking at him, only the eyes are focussed on him: the mind, the true seeker is elsewhere.

So by lack of attention to what we are doing, whatever it may be, we lose all the benefit we should get from that activity, whether it be work or play. This is only too true of Sahaj Marg. As Master says again and again, we are not incapable of attention. On the contrary, we all have considerable capacity for it. All that happens is that attention is where it should not be. It is in the office when we are meditating. It is at the playground when we are in the office. It is upon unwanted thoughts during meditation. And so on and on. All that is necessary for success on the path is to bring attention back to where it belongs. As Master says so simply and beautifully, "Just divert the mind, and It is there."

Is every work worship?
There are people who are working and are not able to earn even their daily bread. They are not working. They are labouring. Therefore they are called labourers. They are labouring all their lives and all that they can acquire is sometimes one roti and one green chilli, and a little more than a langoti(loincloth) to wear. They are also working. As to the other half of society, if you just concentrate, you will find that they also claim to be working, and with their work they are able to make enough not only for themselves, but for their children, their children's children and so on for seven generations. And yet they go on working. At least they claim they are working.

Sometimes I have been on both sides. You see I have also worked with my hands for a few years in a factory. And in those days I used to earn something like Rs.150/- a month. Then, I don't know whether you should call it luck or God's grace, or the blessings of the elders; I got into what is called a white-collar job. There also I found, that I could say with impunity, that I am working. And what did my work consist of? A few letters a day, a few contacts for sales, and to my astonishment, without doing very much, I ended up as the director of a few companies.

So when we come to this conflict between the worker or the labourer as I choose to call them, and workers as we choose to call ourselves, what is it that makes one a labourer and one a worker, or a white-collar worker? Do they not work enough to earn all that we have earned? So, very early in my life when I started asking these questions and when I heard that 'work is worship,' I used to laugh at this old English proverb. How can this work be worship and how is it worship? What is worship? So there seems to have been some misunderstanding of what worship really means; because if you can pull a hand cart and call it worship, if you work a machine eight hours a day and call it worship, and if you can sit in an air-conditioned office, dictate two letters and then have lunch at a five-star hotel and call that also worship, obviously there is something wrong.

So you see, the first law of spirituality is, "You are entitled to your daily bread; after all God gave you the stomach." If He wanted you to be stomachless and to be only a meditator, He would have made you stomachless. So obviously there is some purpose in having a stomach and the intestines and the need to eat. Give enough time for that. "What should I do with the rest of the time?" This was the question I asked my Master. He said, "Think of God." Because that is your main purpose of existence.

So my Master taught me to examine life itself and the purpose of this existence. He said, "If it was merely to live and to earn and to fill your stomach and to satisfy your urge for security and go on amassing wealth, God would have surely made you a honey bee or an ant or perhaps a squirrel. But when He made you a human being and gave you the intellect, and the willpower and the idea that there is something superior to you which has created you and which is beckoning you on to Himself, that is your true purpose." So, that was when I learnt that work can be worship if it is worshipfully applied to oneself, that is to the making of oneself.

So work can become worship only when we understand that this external work that we do is not really work. It is a means of acquiring my livelihood. The true work is that which I do on myself, to become something; like when you educate your child, the child is working furiously for its education. It is doing something to itself. When we have educated ourselves, it means that we should use that education rightly. Rightly in what way? To set my goal and to be able to achieve that goal, do whatever is necessary - work. This work has to be again internalised on myself, to become something, you see. To become what? From a human being, I have become an educated human being, now I have to become a spiritual human being.

So my Master only taught that, 'Please have a right idea of work. Like an iceberg, which is only showing 1/8th of its tip above the surface of the water, the rest is hidden; your work is also 1/8th outside, 7/8th inside. You have to become progressively more and more human, until you are totally a human being. Then work upon yourself to become progressively divinised to the highest level of perfection.

This is the true work and if you do, work can become worship.'
Very often, we find some people are successful in their work, some people are not. It is not the difference in the effort. The man, who loses money in business, has also put money in business. It is not as if he did not put money in business. This man puts a lakh of rupees, that man puts a lakh of rupees. This man is also working day and night; the other one is also working day and night. So, why one loses and one does not lose? One flops in business and then, we blame God, we blame everything else. The blame should be on ourselves! Because in one case, the person must have worked without thinking of the profit! In a sense, it was Karma Yoga: "Ma phaleshu kadachana." In the other case the person was always working with a profit motive: "What will I get out of it?" Samskara and all that is secondary, you see. Because any work, which is done in the consciousness of the Master, cannot fail, whatever my samskara may be. My samskara can affect me; it cannot affect my work. And what is my work? If it is the Master's work, under no circumstances can it fail! God Himself cannot put failure in that work.

Karma Yoga has been very wrongly interpreted. It is my humble suggestion that when Lord Krishna said, "Ma phaleshu kadachana," He said, "My dear friend, if you think of the results of your actions, you will become impotent. You will worry because every result has two possibilities: success and failure. You cannot think of one without thinking of the other. There cannot be shade without there being light. So leave that to me. You go on with your work. If you are doing the right thing at the right time, how on earth can you fail to succeed?" This is the Karma Yoga law, as I understand it.

Work rewards work
Those who work expect to be rewarded for it. In simple human terms this is a universal expectation, and much work goes into computing the reward, or remuneration as it is now a days called, both by those awarding it and by those receiving it. Most current disputes centre around this problem, and the definition of what is 'fair' compensation for a specified input of labour.

In the Bhagawad Gita, Lord Krishna teaches that man has the right to work, but has no right over the fruits of such work. He teaches the correct approach as being one of renunciation of the fruits of labour and calls this Karma Yoga. It is of course a very difficult idea to accept. It is not merely an idea, it is an ideal. But if we think deeply over this, what is the conclusion that we can draw? Surely Sri Krishna does not deny us the right to exist, which is what his teaching would imply if man were to receive no reward for his work. It is implicit in one's existence that the means for such existence will be provided but one has to leave this to the Provider, and not waste time on calculating the reward that one should receive. The Provider knows what to give, and if man applies himself to the calculation of what he should get, he is, by implication, questioning the knowledge, and more so the generosity of the giver.

So the proper attitude for human beings is to work without thinking of the reward they will, or should receive. This puts the question of work and reward at a higher level of human endeavour, by making man work in the confidence that his needs will be met fully and completely. The mercenary attitude is done away with and, if this teaching is universally adopted, it will at one stroke do away with all meanness and corruption attendant on this problem.

What is it that work really gives us? Is it merely a reward to be received slavishly from another person? Or is it something higher than this? To my mind, if Sri Krishna's teaching is correctly interpreted, what it really means is that one thinks in terms of reward only so long as one thinks that he is working for another person, and therefore the other should pay or reward the work done. Karma Yoga teaching properly understood should mean that one should not think he is working for another but for one's own self! If this idea comes, then who is to reward the worker? From where is the reward, if any, to come? Surely the Self is the one to reward its self!

When we study the results of work, divorced from any concept of reward, an illuminating knowledge dawns upon us. We find that what work really confers on us is the ability and power to undertake bigger, higher work. Whether it be in the physical or mental, intellectual fields of human aspiration and endeavour, this fact is absolutely true. Every piece of work, undertaken and successfully completed, endows us with the ability and power to go up to the next higher level of work. Is this not a reward? Why then are we universally blind to this? It is because we have conditioned ourselves to thinking that reward must come from outside ourselves.

Let us examine this a little further. What happens to a physical worker who neglects his work? He loses the capacity to do his work efficiently and correctly. His muscles become flaccid, and continued idleness makes them ultimately atrophy. So a stage comes when the work has to be withheld from him. This is the ultimate punishment, that work has to be denied to him. Who has punished him? The logical answer can only be that by nonperformance of the duty entrusted to him, he has punished himself. The same conclusion attends nonperformance of duty at other levels too. In all cases the worker loses his ability and power to work, and work is withheld.

If, however, the worker works correctly and efficiently, increased capacities and power develop within him, the consequent reward being that he is given higher and progressively higher work and so is enabled to develop himself to the limit of possible growth. The conclusion is that as we develop ourselves more and more by active and efficient conduct of the duty entrusted to us, our employer, or Master, gives us higher and yet higher work to do, thus affording us the opportunity of developing ourselves to higher and higher levels of human attainment until we finally arrive at a stage of perfection in work, approaching the Divine Capacity for work.

Thus we see that work is inevitable for growth. It is only by work that a person can grow. The reward of work is higher work. The reward of correct performance of higher work is the highest work. And what Master does to help us grow is to give us the first work he bestows upon us. Here begins, to my humble thinking, the real sadhana. How we perform the very first duty allotted to us by Master governs our future development. If we do it well, conscientiously and with dedication, higher work is given to us, having within itself the possibility of further growth that is put before us. If we fail, we punish ourselves. The reward, to my thinking that Master can give us is thus tied us in the work that he gives us. And this reward we earn by proper performance and nothing more. The punishment can only be denial of future work, thus closing upon us the door of self-development.

A great truth of the spiritual dimension is that, power is given simultaneously when work is given. In support of this statement I relate the case of a newly created Preceptor, upon whom Master bestowed some work. The Preceptor did the work. His senior Preceptor, who was in-charge of the centre to which he was attached, wrote to Master, praising the work done, and recommending that the person should be rewarded. Master's reply was illuminating. He wrote that on the day the new Preceptor commenced the work entrusted to him, at the very moment he commenced it, he was put in the particular region of spiritual existence.

This analysis reveals that work alone can be the reward of work well done. By doing our work well, all that we can aspire to, is for more work, higher work and nothing more. But 'nothing more' is misleading, for, as I have shown here, work alone makes growth possible and therefore when work is given to us, it is not merely work that is given to us, but the possibility of infinite growth that is opened up to us.

Master rewards before you perform
I remember when I first went to Europe after becoming a preceptor, Babuji Maharaj wrote to me and said, "Do some work of the Mission there." I did whatever I could. I came back after six weeks. In the meantime, my preceptor, Mr. Veeraraghavan of Madras, wrote to Babuji and said, "Parthasarathi has done very good work abroad. I think he needs a reward. He merits a reward. Please reward him." Babuji wrote back in a post card, "My boy has done excellent work in Europe. By Lalaji's Grace, he was put in the Brahmanda Mandal the moment his feet touched the soil of Europe." I asked Babuji later on, "How can this be possible that you reward before the performance?" He said, "Only a fool waits for performance to reward. I am not a businessman. Number two, when you are put in a position like the Brahmanda Mandal, you acquire certain powers without which you cannot do the work." Now, it would be a stupid boss who gives you work which you cannot do, or for which you don't have the necessary powers.

So in Sahaj Marg, the reward is always before the performance. This is His blessing, His grace, His immense generosity, that he is able to say, "Take it and do the work." He is not like the temporal boss who says, "Suppose I give him and he does not work, what should be my loss?" Here, there is no loss or gain - "Poornam adah Poornam idam" [That is complete, this is complete]. He is the Master of infinity. You can take away everything from Him without His feeling the loss.

So don't think of reward because it is a weakness. We don't work to get something. We work because we love Him. We work because we must work. It is our only way of showing that we love Him, we adore Him, we worship Him. As Babuji once said, "I am doing Nature's work and anybody else doing my work is also doing Nature's work. For him, Nature will put no opposition in his path." So that is the blessing of the Master, that is our hope, that is our future. Let us work towards it with love.

Preceptor's work
Let us not do this work like work. It must be something which we cannot help doing. It must be something, which we have to do, which must be our existence. When we separate work from our existence and say, "I have work to do," or "I have to study," then I and my work are separate; I and my study are separate. Therefore, we suffer because where there should be one, there are two. We should not even be conscious we are working. And when there are no abhyasis we should feel a sense of isolation, loneliness, and long for company, that is called satsangh, you see. So I wish that such a situation will develop in all your lives, and that service will become a joy, and the absence of the opportunity to serve will become a desolation. Then only can we be said to be true preceptors. Until then we are like any other worker, you see.

The more they take over the work of the Master, the more the Master is relieved to take over yet higher work. Isn't it? And that is how growth comes. Such a man has to be promoted, you see. You want to wait until promotion, to do the work. Here, you do the work, and even God cannot deny you that promotion. That was my experience in my company life, too. Even when I was the junior-most salesman, I was doing the wok of my boss and inevitably, you know, I got his job. Do you know, in three years I was my boss's boss, in my company. So all comes by work. Work teaches, work gives, work elevates, work makes you grow. Work is its own reward. By doing work, you work more. The more you work, the more you get.

Every time you give, you receive much more than you give. It is the philosophy behind transmission, it is truth behind transmission: that the more you work, the more you receive from the Master. Every preceptor, even the best, who transmits almost continuously, keeps back 20 percent. He cannot do more than that, you see. And this is his commission, as Babuji said jokingly, "In no business do you get 20 percent commission. Here you get it." And that is from the Master. And how much you receive in terms of reflected love, reflected light, reflected growth, satisfaction of seeing other people grow and evolve under you. We should think of these things and not think of work as some sort of drudgery which is imposed upon us by a so called benevolent Master who uses us for His purpose. We should not even be conscious that we are doing something. The highest work is done when there is no consciousness of the being involved and of the work being done and of somebody being helped.

Master has, for the first time in the annals of human thought, introduced the concept of power-grossness, which results from power given not being used. This idea of power-grossness is powerfully illustrated in Sri Krishna's statement that even He, the Ultimate Being, the Purushothama Himself, cannot remain idle for one moment. The explanation he offers is that such idleness on His part, even for one moment, would lead to the destruction and collapse of the manifested Universe. Looking at this from the Sahaj Marg point of view of power-grossness taught to us by my Master, we see why the Divine Himself cannot remain idle without work. As Master jokingly explained creation to me, God had to create the Universe and keep it going, so as to ultilise His powers, as otherwise He Himself would lose His powers!

You never keep powers. Powers are for work. But we want power without working. What will you do with it if you are not working? It is like money when we do not want to spend it. What is the use of keeping it? The most essential thing is that, when I need it, I should have it. Thus, if you go in conformity with the laws of nature, in obedience to your Master's work and principles, you get what you need.

When you are permitted to do something, you get the ability to do something, side by side. When He gives the work, He gives the power to do it. And when you ask for power, it is crazy, you know, because all the power in the world that you need for that work, you get. When it is finished, you are again powerless. In the sense, it is only a man who is working continuously for Him who retains the powers, and gets more and more as he needs, you see. What would we do with power without work? It is power grossness.

The Bhagawad Gita once again gives us a clue to this important and universal truth, when Yoga is defined as "Skill in action" or in other words, skillful performance of one's work. The true Yoga, or sadhana is therefore, nothing but the right performance of work bestowed upon us. This is true yoga, or yogic sadhana at the highest level. This implies that there can be no Yoga where such "skill in action" is not developed. Master once told me that all who participate in His work, are really performing the work of Nature, that is, they are participating in Divine work.

Here it is important to bear in mind that physical rewards, in material form are things of which we can be deprived by men or by circumstances. Power and abilities developed by us by right performance of our work are within us, are non-material, and therefore remain ours forever. We can never be deprived of them as long as we continue with the right performance of our duties. Such are the indestructible, undiminishable fruits of work properly done.

So do the work in such a fashion that the wealth that you accumulate is yours alone; nobody can touch it; nobody can taste it; nobody can smell it; therefore nobody can covet it; therefore nobody can rob it and most important of all, you will take it with you when you leave this life. So, my Master's message was, is and will always be eternally the same: "Look for that wealth, work for that wealth which is eternally yours and which will help you to go further on the path to Divinisation."

May my Divine Master make it possible for each and every one of us to work for Him, and thus enable us to grow to the Ultimate limit of growth offered us by the Sahaj Marg system of yogic sadhana.

"When you are doing the Master's work,
His attention is always on you."

WORK IS MAN'S GREAT FUNCTION

He is nothing, he can do nothing,
he can achieve nothing,
fulfill nothing without working

If you are poor - work.
If you are rich - continue working.
If you are burdened with seemingly
unfair responsibilities - work.

If you are happy, keep right on working.
Idleness gives room for doubt and fears.
If disappointments come - work.
If your health is threatened - work.
When faith falters - work.
When dreams are shattered
and hope seems dead - work.

Work as if your life were in peril. It really is.
No matter what ails you - work.
Work faithfully - work with faith.

Work is the greatest remedy available for
mental and physical afflictions.

- From an anonymous poet