Work in the Material World

Ecology of Human Being in Multidimensional Space / Work in the Material World

Work in the Material World

In regard to work two principles should be important for any person, even if he or she is not mature enough yet to be able to comprehend highest religious truths. These are — honesty and striving to learn as much as possible. The second principle implies not only aspiration towards study, but also quite frequent changing of the field of applying one’s efforts and change of places of work. We come to every new place enriched by the experience we gained at all of our previous places of work. This significantly enriches our experience, develops us intellectually, and creates an objective prerequisite for respectful attitude from other people’s side.

For a religious person, the attitude towards work implies even more serious approach. Namely, he should regard his social activity as his service to God.

This is called karma yoga. Karma yoga is the path of self-perfection through helping God in His Evolution. This consists in various kinds of help to other people — help in what is really useful for them, including the spiritual help.

One should try to serve people with one’s highest abilities, as well as to aspire towards acquiring even higher skills to use for one’s service [10].

This attitude towards work implies that personal material gain moves far down on the list of one’s motives, because this kind of service is one’s way to express one’s love for God and for people. But can one sell one’s love?

Krishna was saying about this: “Regard only the work and not the reward for it. … Miserable are those who act for the sake of getting reward for their activity.” [10] (Bhagavad Gita, 2:47, 49).

Karma yoga does not imply a principle of working for free, at all. But karma yogis eat “remains of their sacrifices”, as Krishna figuratively put it. [10] (Bhagavad Gita, 3:13).

However, those who receive help should not forget that the one who helps them also has to pay for food, transport, accommodation and so on. Let us recall the words of Jesus Christ that relate to this: “Laborers deserve their food” (Matthew, 10:10), “Laborer deserves to be paid” (Luke, 10:7), and Krishna’s words from the Bhagavad Gita: “The one, who receives gifts and gives no gifts in return, is verily a thief.” [10] (Bhagavad Gita, 3:12).

“Gratitude is one of the main qualities of justice… The ungrateful is, first of all, ignoble. We term nobility as the benevolent accumulations from previous lives…” [2] (Hierarchy: 182).

Man develops Love, Wisdom, and Power through constant spiritual quest, which has to be accompanied by service according to the karma yoga principles.

We have already talked much about Love, now let us talk about Wisdom, the quality, without which it is impossible to reach perfection and to Merge with God.

Wisdom is the knowledge of the most essential things: what is God, what is man, what is the meaning of man’s life, and what is the Evolution of the Universal Consciousness. It also implies being familiar with the diversity of human souls, as well as the ability to classify people according to their qualities, faculties, and psychogenetic age abilities. Wisdom consists also in knowing the Straight Path to perfection and various ways people may diverge from it. And also — knowing how one can help every person in the Evolution by determining the kind of spiritual help that would be appropriate for him.

Man acquires Wisdom by performing theoretic research and by gaining practical experience. The former consists in studying the instructions that God has been giving to incarnate people, as well as in getting acquainted with the experience of people who were searching for God, their errors and successes. Man gains practical knowledge by studying himself and God, as well as by engaging in spiritual service and creative spiritual work.