The Yoga Of Work

A certain degree of inertia--the quest for homeostasis, perhaps--tends to conspire within us against any incentive towards growth, change and transformation. Whether we are speaking about work or about love we are also implying that there is an ever-present possibility for our being transformed in a radical way. That is what work can do to us--it can remake us, pull new talents and possibilities out of us, help us realize our Self even.

The Hindu Wisdom Tradition points to the possibility of our being radically transformed by work through what has been called Karma Yoga. By immersing ourselves in service (read, work) we are offered the possibiliuty of being totally transformed, right to the very core of that self-contracted, narcissistic root that has been proclaimed cosmic enemy No. 1 by non other than Adi Da.

In Western-speak, though, this possibility held out by work is not often spoken of. In the West there is a tendency to speak of work in terms of what we do... and not what work does to us. The very act of work is a movement that is reciprocal in how it in-forms us and trans-forms us. Work is one of the primary means for 'realizing the Self'--even though work is often thought to be an obstacle to that same realization. In fact, my gut feeling is that there is a prejudice against work in terms of how work does not allow one to engage one's passion or dreams in the deepest sense. For far too many there are assumptions centered around as if it were far too mundane, tedious. And yet within the Wisdom Tradition we call Zen there is an appreciation of the transformational potentialities inherent within the tedious and the mundane. Hence the pithy phrase, 'Samsara is nirvana.'

Buddha-Nature resides within the tasks too often labeled as obstructions to the realization of that same Nature. Work demands something of us. Work can engage the best within us. And most of that depends on what we imagine work to be, as well as how much we bring our Self to the Yoga of Work.