……..My Master used to say, "Work as if you are playing and play as if you are working".

This is very significantly brought out in that tiny novel by Herman Hesse (a German author) Siddhartha. This young Siddhartha is an aspiring yogi, young boy of sixteen, brahmin boy. He gets involved wit a troupe of yogis, goes into the jungle with them, lives as what they call in that book samana yudi, a life of extreme austerity, penance, tapasya, the barest minimum. Having lived this existence, he comes across Buddha and his group going somewhere, but he is not impressed. His companion goes with the Buddhists. He goes on his own way, comes to the door of a courtesan Kamala, when she is being brought on her palakhi (palanquin). He falls in love with her, but just sits there because he is haggard, his hair is matted, he is emaciated. How on Earth is the most beautiful courtesan of those times going to even allow him to enter her house? But he sits there at the gatepost, day after day after day, unmoving, he doesn't even get up once. Third day, fourth day. Fifth day, Kamala stops.
She says, "What are you doing here?"
He says, "I am waiting for you."
She says, " You! Waiting for me. Don't even dream of it!"
Sixth day she sees him again.
She says, "You know, before I can entertain people I need money. That's what I am selling myself for. What can you do?"
He says, " I can wait and I can fast." Two things that are necessary, and ultimately he wears her down and she calls him into her room and she becomes his lover.

As his lover she teaches him what to do for his existence: "You need money. Go to so and so, who is one of my clients in the city, the biggest businessman. Learn business." There this boy goes.
He asks him, "Who sent you?"
He says, "Kamala".
"Okay, what can you do?"
"I can fast, I can wait."
He says, "They are hardly qualifications for running a business. Anyway, since Kamala has sent you I will give you a job."
In the course of a few years he becomes the boss. Why? Not because he was management expert from Harvard or a wizard with finance but because he played with the business. It was not his money. He played with it and his boss was almost getting heart attacks every time he ventured into a new field. Because once you make money, security becomes the objective.
"No, no, let us not invest here, let us invest there."
You know it is like a man with shoes who is always afraid of thorns! People who have no shoes on their feet can walk anywhere. And he becomes so big that the owner hands over the business. Then he gets into all the corrupt ways of the moneyed man. One day he wakes up, nauseated with himself, goes to the river, vomits. He looks at his reflection; he cannot even stand his own face.

But the point of the story is, when you play with business you become very rich. If you are always agonising over it and calculating and formulating and planning, … you may become very rich, but not by your effort.
Therefore spirituality says, "My friend, remember this law: what you did in the past, what you sowed last year, you are reaping the benefits this year. Don't equate your present success with your present effort. You will be damn fool if you will do it. Today's efforts will yield fruit tomorrow. Therefore enjoy the fruit of your past because it is coming to you from your own past as the fruit of your labour. But remember, what you are doing today is going to be the crop for the next year and the year after."

Source: The Principles of Sahaj Marg, Volume X, pp.235-237, P. Rajagopalachari, 1997, Shri Ram Chandra Mission, India

Q: Do you ever stop to think how your behaviour and efforts today will have an effect on the future?

Q: What is your attitude towards your material possessions? Are you so worried about holding on to what you have that you cannot relax and enjoy them, or share them, or give them away?

O, Master!
Thou art the real goal of human life.
We are yet but slaves of wishes
Putting bar to our advancement,
Thou art the only God and power
To bring us up to that stage.