Bhagavad Gita is a supreme authority on evaluating karma, act or activity, in its religious and spiritual aspects. What kind of work can be termed spiritual, what not so; whether the value and usefulness of karma lies in its outer content, or something inner; how is elevation to be brought about; all these have been considered by Sri Krishna in the different chapters of the text.
In the 18th chapter, Krishna speaks about the intrinsic variety of human constitution. He classifies this variety into four primarily .Each one of them is given to a set of general traits and tendencies. Tracing them to the three gunas, satwa, rajas,and tamas, he describes the exterior and interior motivations each combination gives rise to.
The satwa dominant group conducts itself to wholesome spiritual pursuit and contemplation. The knowledge and realization of Brahman is the goal for them. They do not generally entertain secular worldly or commercial ventures. The basic growth, education, mostly spiritual and religious, and even marriage, accomplished at the respective ages of their life, their fundamental inspiration is to comprehend the supreme truth and make their whole life a pursuit after it.
The rajas-satwik group, the kshaatra- swabhaavins strive hard to promote their physical strength and abilities, so that they can increase their valour and chivalry for the benefit of the society’s well being. Ruling the people, helping the ruler in his task, doing military, policing and similar acts, they live wedded to the society’s cause and laying their strength at its altar.
The society’s welfare depends upon two other phases also; one is producing food and other items needed by one and all. Also to make food grow in the fields available in where it will be easily purchased by the common men and women, say the market places. To produce is a full time task. To collect the production, transport it efficiently to the places of trade and commerce, and sell it for public buying and use is a different pursuit. Both these together constitute agriculture and commerce. Industry becomes part of this double venture. All these are looked after by another group, in whom rajas and tamas are more at work. Krishna identifies them as the vaisya – swabhaavins.
There is one more group, called the soodra –swabhaavins. They do not possess much of independent ambitions or designs. Whatever physical and mental strength, resources, they have, they place at the disposal of those who need them. Service – loyal, wholesome and dedicated – is what they have to offer. They are ready to offer their physical capacities to those who will avail them in time and for a good reward. With the remuneration gained, they look after the needs of their families.
The society is thus composed of all four components. Just like the earth possess several minerals and chemicals, and each of these has its physical and chemical properties, the variety of the society also has these specific ingredients, each with its traits prominent and useful. The world in order to be so, needs the combined existence of all the four constituents for its upkeep and promotion.
After enumerating the different mind and intelligence groups, Krishna proceeds to say:
These differences are quite prominent. But will they also add their colour in gaining spiritual wisdom and realization? Are all the four ‘equally’ near the Lord of the world, or do their tendencies and work make any difference in their spiritual status and their relationship with Him?
This question is very fundamental. It can be extended to all people, of all types of vocations. For the preservation of the individual and social needs, when alone the broad spectrum of the society will survive, several kinds of work, of activity, become necessary. No one can do all these. Not even a few together can. A variety will be necessary to fulfill the different tasks, and then alone the individual’s needs will be fulfilled.
Suppose you are working in an office. It may be a trade centre or an industrial unit. The goods or product you bring about may be inevitable for the maintenance of the society. And therefore, your pursuit is very much a social need.
Think of your needs, as an individual, in common with any other. You need food, various items of it. The need for shelter and clothing is also there. By your work alone, the field in which you are, neither of these will be provided. At the same time, you cannot live without getting these, first and last. How do you meet them, then? The food, produced by others, by their own labour becomes available in the market for you to buy. The materials for making a house, or a house already made ready is also available. You can make use of them, while you continue in your trade field.
Think of the others, whose products comes to you. The product which your field deals with goes to them, in the same way. One wears the cloth made of cotton grown by the cotton growers. The cotton – growers eat the food, produced by the farmers. Both equally make use of the goods finished in the factory in which you work.
The relationship among the society members is always fundamental, absolute. No one can say he will live only on whatever he directly produces or makes. The personality of the individual is so evolved, its preservation so designed, that everyone will have to depend upon, directly or indirectly, several others. The variety of work, its assortment and multiplicity, required for the maintenance of both individual and community life brings thus the men and women of any era under a close bond. That is Nature’s making. It is great, profound and singular.
Mostly, an individual can be given only to one kind of work, activity. That is how men and women basically differ in our country, in their pursuits. Man has always been doing the outdoor work, the women the indoor. The keeping of a house is a very complex task. If a worker puts in eight hours of work daily in a factory, the women, the worker in the household has to spend almost sixteen hours for making a ‘home’ for the factory worker!
If both of them work in the factory, a third will have to take up the household tasks. Even then, it cannot be spared. It is said, the distance a woman, the mistress of the household walks daily in the house is anything from 30 to 60 km. Can you believe it?
I closely observe the household and its management. I have deep consideration for women. The attention and labour they put in, unnoticed and mostly unrecognized, within the house are enormous. And it is with these mothers and sisters that we derogate the role as ‘inferior’
Like the division of work between man and woman –non household and household –the entire range of work and production needed for the individual living, as well as social living, falls upon the whole range of people; each section or group doing a bit – one kind or other –and all sections together doing the entire lot.
Think of a Temple itself, where the Lord is installed as an idol and worship is done daily by several devotees and lovers of the Lord. For running the temple, a set of workers are necessary. If the temple is a large one –a Mahaakshetra – then there will be a chief or head priest. He alone will perform the actual close- quarters pooja for the idol. Bathing the idol, coating the idol with sandal paste or other unguents, fixing the special ornaments, garlands and so on is his job, and his alone. Doing archana, offering neivedya [food items], removing and cleaning the previous day’s garlands etc; doing abhisheka….. all these are done by this chief priest.. In short everything that is directly connected with the Lord, the Idol, is the personal work and attention of the chief priest. To assist him in his job, to prepare the food offers in the temple kitchen, to carry them to the sanctum sanctorum, to make the sandal paste, and do such other work, there are special assistants. Some of them will have to go to and move inside the installation room also. But the assistants do only the assisting kind of work. Their attention, love and loyalty are fully in what they do.
The whole temple, other than the sanctum sanctorum, needs cleaning, washing etc. The vessels used in the kitchen and elsewhere also has to be washed. Making garlands with flowers, hulling and powdering rice and other such pieces of work, all these are done by another set of people, both men and women.
Those engaged in these items of work feel responsible for what they do. There are singers, those playing instruments, holding lamps, keeping watch and ward, as also many others, all doing their respective duties. The whole temple, as a religious centre and institution, gets on only by the combined activities of all these people.
Ask a question now: Is the Lord, the mere Idol installed in the sanctum sanctorum, away from the last- mentioned group of people, and near to the first- mentioned? The chief priest, concerned with decorating and worshipping, does not, by virtue of his ‘nearer work’ become near to the Lord in reality. His work will not be possible, except when all the other items in the ladder are also step by step done in their order. Every one does a little of what becomes the huge total. This little done by each may externally have its relevance. That apart, all the little ones have their own measure of importance and value.
How can one kind of work be superior and another kind inferior? Either by virtue of one’s birth, growth and education or due to the nature and length of association, or any other factor, each individual feels fit, equipped to do a particular type of work. It is like the engineering students turning in groups for studying mechanical, civil, electrical, and other branches of engineering science itself. Students of professionals of one group will not become superior to those of the other groups. There the selection or option is governed by a certain basis or standard. In the context of temple, it is something else. That is all the difference.
Somehow the delusion of superiority and inferiority is working in the minds of several people. Like so many other delusions, this too has a place, and we find it dominant in many persons.
Here in the Asram also, we find the troubles and imbalances caused by the general delusion about work. The religiously inclined people, on coming here, think that doing work directly connected with the worship of the Lord is more important than the rest. They say: ‘we want to do some service to the Asram.’ Invariably, the preference is obvious. In the same strain, they may not feel or say that they will sweep and wipe the floor, or wash plates and articles. Gathering flowers or washing the pooja vessels is always preferred to the others.
But the Asram, for its existence, needs several other kinds of work, as any place of human residence –household will. All the little and big things enabling our individual and collective life are there, to be looked into, supervised, arranged, organized and executed scrupulously. If at all, the asram has several additional and more cumbersome elements.
Sweeping and wiping, washing and cleaning, and such other chores are greatly more here than you can think of in any good household. You will be able to come to the hall, sit there for group chanting or recital or for satsang assembly only when the place is kept clean beforehand. Keeping clean is not restricted to the hall alone. Everything from the bathroom, latrine onwards to the pooja room and the pooja vessels, all taken together constitute the whole of the Asram life and living. To give a superior position to the pooja - orbit and an inferior one to the kitchen or bathroom is not correct by any standard
So the right attitude must be to participate in anything that is either available or assigned to. Depending upon the background, age, familiarity, aptitude, psychological composition and the like, everyone will be given what is best for him and for the situation. To take delight in doing the given bit, to love doing so, is the right step, elevating to the doer and pleasing to the others. If the mind is encouraged to think that the work assigned is inferior, and something else done by another is superior, it will be quiet wrong. In truth such a sense of differentiation, dividing outlook, is the cause for degeneration.
True tapasya or asceticism does not imply sitting in a place, restraining the senses and the mind, in a note of non action or inaction. To be involved in one kind of work or another, and to find contentment and composure in such pursuit, is a very noble level of austerity. The diverse tendencies of the mind are to be checked, and a singular pursuit persisted in; this is the real training, discipline for the mind being. Ananya bhaava, exclusiveness – applying to one’s pursuit exclusively, to the exclusion of all other involvements – is greatly stressed by Krishna, especially while describing devotion. Ananya bhakthi he calls it.
So, the earlier the delusion (about any kind of work being inferior or superior, and thereby to prefer wrongly one kind to another) is recognized, the better. I am not denying that every individual has a certain aptitude, skill and practice in a particular field of activity. That is bound to be so. One’s own birth, the blood-heredity he derives through it, the habitual exposure to what his parents or other elders are given to, all these will spontaneously instill in him a specific taste, ability and familiarity. The so-called swabhava builds itself up in this manner.
When you say heredity, it becomes inborn, gained by dint of one’s birth. You find this conspicuous in musicians, artists, even in intellectuals like mathematicians, engineers, lecturers, traders and industrialists. No trader, as a rule, wishes to invest money in making a building for him to live. His ideas being always profitability-oriented, the investment, he finds, fetches only a much less return than in trade. So he prefers to live in a rented house, the rent working to a much less percentage than what the capital would fetch through trade.
But this trading thought, industrial reasoning or culture, is alien and unfeasible to the manager, administrator or even a professional accountant. They may know the facts, but they have no option in the matter. For they lack the trading potential or the industrial adventurism, both of which will call for a lot of psychological (emotional) affinity born out of a deep-rooted familiarity with the line and the risks involved in it.
The office worker therefore always prefers to put his money in a building far him. He is propertied in his outlook, wanting always to be secure in his life. His skill is in working for others, not working about the capital, its risky increase or decrease at the end of the year. He chooses to give his dedicated work to the capitalist, safely keeping away from the worries of owning any capital. Is this not a kind of culture, heredity and the factor allied to it?
Even in the nervous system, you will find the aptitude and flexibility implanted by blood heredity. A farmer or the tiller, who uses various agricultural implements, must have his typical facile movements and adjustments. In holding the spade, pickaxe, crowbar or others, there is a good measure of skill and precision, which alone will go to economise time and exertion, enhance skill and effectiveness. Ask an altogether strange person at a ripe age to handle these instruments. You will find he is either unable to or he blunders and hurts himself.
But the situation is quite different for a boy, or even a girl, born to a farmer and fostered by the environment associated with farming operations. The child, even in the child-stage sees what is done by the parents. Together with his own natural flexibility, of both the body and the mind, this enables him to take to the tasks with facility, which soon grows into an appreciable skill. Even here, of course, there is ample scope for further improvement and efficiency.
In Tamilnad, in some other States also, there are specific areas where cotton mills exist and function. I asked a mill owner why were the mills set up there? He told me that there alone they get the right type of people to do the task. The men and women in these places have for generations been used to the cotton-handling work, all kinds of it. As were the parents, their vocations, so are the children, theirs too. Like plant growing and bearing, as does the mother plant, this too is a sequence of nature’s making.
So heredity, all the notes it brings and promotes along with it, is a great factor, fundamental and even ultimate. To kill an animal is impossible for an ordinary innocent individual. But an established butcher’s son takes to the task easily and as a profession. He may otherwise have his human and non-killing aspects, in his character and inclinations. But he does accomplish slaughter, as a regular occupation. The law that makes this possible is his heredity. His sentiments do not revolt. His conscience is not pricked by any counter thought.
An animal, which you rear with love, affection and intimacy. It is natural that your mind picks up a sense of inseparability towards it. How can you think of killing that animal, make its flesh your sweet dish? In terms of sweet human sentiments, the idea is repugnant, intolerable. But this is so only with those who are in alien circles and groups. I have asked some of those who work in the Asram. They rear goats and hen. Feeding them regularly, even treating their sickness, they spend a lot of time and labour, with attention and love, no doubt.
But soon, these pets are either sold out for killing, or even killed for the needs of their own palate. “Do not your mind feel hurt or questioned in having to kill the creatures you yourselves rear with love? With a smile, the worker said: “No, somehow such a thought does not occur to us. It has been customarily done, and we also do it, without any reluctance.”
“What about the cows or buffalos you have?” “We don’t mind selling them, if necessary, for using their flesh. But we cannot kill them ourselves and eat.”
What does all this reveal, demonstrate? It is all a play of heredity. The mind you find in a person now has its fundamental seeds sown long before his birth, the body’s birth and growth. The basic tendencies and sentimental textures are bequeathed to him by his progenitors, and even their own. Exceptions there will be and are, but broadly the rule prevails.
Though in a small measure, we, in the Ashram, do have farming operations. These involve handling and carrying cow-dung from the dung-pit, spreading it in the garden, in the plant and tree beds. Sometimes, the dung becomes very loose, even watery. Carrying it on the head is naturally a very irksome task. But the same girls or women, who with their clean dress do so many other items of work, do this apparently unpleasant task. I don’t know whether it gives rise to any unpleasantness in their minds. Possibly not, or may be it does, but not to the point of making their minds recoil.
Perhaps in looking at them and what they do, I, my eyes are quite alike any other’s. The object seen is the same. But the mind behind the eyes strikes perhaps a great difference. It flies wide and high in a spell of sudden imagination. The spell survives until at last I lose myself in a graceful silence generated by Nature when Her pulsations sink into the depths of our being without let or hindrance, resulting in a supreme note of harmony.
Is here work inferior? Or is it indispensable? Is the other work, others do in the kitchen or pooja room, superior either. The legs have to step everywhere, if the body has to move freely. Sometimes you have to place your feet in dirty places too. By doing so, do the legs become dirty? Can the hands claim superiority, on the ground of avoiding the feet’s dirty plights? Which is the right vision, outlook?
The mind is evolved by Nature, to interact with it (Nature), without any undue reservation. Nature is complex in every way. So the mind’s interactions are to be equally complex. This complexity is what will make our mind complete and harmonious. If you eschew any one or more facets of Nature’s expression, regarding them as inferior or clumsy, to that extent your mind’s growth and maturity will also dwindle.
The tendency to make unauthentic, unsupportable divisions is initially ingrained in the mind. And it makes its custodian –man or woman – suffer disharmony and agitation. The true seeker must recognize this tendency and raise his understanding above it. The practical help and assistance for him will be found in every walk of life – within the household, in the work spot; amongst friends, relations, through marriage, being parents, in short in all the interactions of his, with mere objects as well as sentient beings.
Generally women are by nature gifted with a better frame of mind in this respect. By having to conceive in their womb, rear an embryo, undergo confinement, nurture the baby, nurse the sick and the old, their minds get a much wider scope, through custom, convention and compulsion, to evolve an all-embracing attitude. Actually, this attitude has become inborn with them now. They have their sharpness and possessiveness, no doubt. But they are equally coupled with the gentle and noble extremes also.
But men are mostly denied this fortune. Keeping from the home front, its complexities and management, they are invariably exposed only to a narrow section of life. They may meet and move with more people, have greater freedom. But the psychological scope is not so deep, vast and subtle. That is why, even today women are chosen to do the nursing task, in preference to men.
Why did I say all this? It is to show that work, activity or pursuit, by its nature and necessity, will always be various for people. And therefore, orders, kinds, groups and the like will also be there. But all these go to make only a splendid variety, a graceful assortment, an appealing divergence; that is all. Variety is variety alone. At any stage, by any standard, it remains so, to make what is the whole and full.
The segments of this variety do not allow us to make any intrinsic division, by which we begin to think that this segment is inferior in quality and status, and that is superior. The thought should not be in the lines of inferior and superior divisions, as in the lines of complements contributing to the wholeness of structure.
If inferiority and superiority are not true, then all kinds of work and workers must be equally facilitated to achieve their crowning glory, through whatever they do and wherever. Is it so? Yes, is Krishna’s answer, Gita’s statement, the finding and pronouncement of truth in this world. That is why the verse, cited above clearly states: swe swe karmani-abhiratah sam-siddhim labhate narah.
Let each one remain wedded to his task, and make his performance (of that work) a noble dedication to Nature, understanding that his too is a part which goes to make the whole, like so many other parts do. Devoid of his, the whole cannot be the whole, nor the others will be the parts that they are. If such a thought is fostered, instantly the narrowness of the mind, the selfish dot in it, disappears, will become extinct. And this is what conduces to siddhi.
Work is an external physical expression. But the spirituality it aims to bring about is for the worker, the one who does the work. That sentient doer will only be touched and graced by ‘attitude’. Attitude is a mental outcome, a product of emotions and thoughts. It does not belong to the flesh or bone of the body. Being unphysical in nature, that alone reaches and involves the spiritual doerhood. Its effect is marvelous, self-evident too.
Try it, preserve it, and you will find that you are the first proof for the magic siddhi Gita has promised here.
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