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.

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