KARMA YOGA 16

Self-survival and world-maintenance --- these are broadly the motivations that impel man to work. Art, music, science and all other creative pursuits and passions of the soul also spring from an inner urge of expression, of expansion, of communion with the vast world around and, so, somewhat arise from a curious mixture of the aforesaid dual motivations of man. The creative person can survive only through self-expression and this urge of his is at once a means of survival in his own microcosm as also the way to his reaching out to the wider world, his audience. The creative expression of man has ushered in civilisation and has been the synthesis of work for one's own survival and work for world-maintenance, however inadvertent may be the latter motivation in the mind of the creative genius at the point of the execution of his masterpiece. Thus, broadly speaking, these are the twin motivations for work, even compulsions for the same, for our nature compels us to work for self-survival even as our aspirations impel us to enquire, explore and expand in the realm of knowledge, in the domain of the diverse disciplines that variegated Nature offers for study including the soul of man.

The sensory world and the thought world, the conscious plane and the superconscious plane, the field of study extends from the alpha to the omega of existence, such is the hunger of the human heart, such the passion to know, to hold, to feel, to possess, to comprehend Nature to her very core. And this is a stupendous task whose fruition depends entirely on the mastery of the science of work. Karma Yoga is, thus, central to the evolution of human civilisation and is therefore of paramount importance as a field of study itself. All our achievements as a species have been consciously or unconsciously effected through our knowledge of the secret of work.

But the history of the world has not been a primrose path of peaceful human endeavour. The bloody history of the self-savagery of man down the ages is ample testimony to the blind passions that have held sway even as humans marched ahead through uncharted terrain, through the darkened corridors of space-time, through the maze of Maya. The advancement of civilisation in one phase through mastery of the science of work has invariably been nullified in an alternate phase by the utter ignorance of men of this grand science. Thus, wave-like, in crests and troughs, civilisation has progressed and regressed in proportion to man's knowledge or ignorance of the science of work.

Work is a spontaneous outflow of the soul and requires inspirational nurturing rather than ferocity of force. A regimented output is invariably qualitatively inferior to a labour of love for the latter is a free expression of the spirit of man as opposed to the bondman's work that the former is. In essence the spontaneous flow of the spirit lends flavour to the fruition of work and improves its texture significantly. And this freedom implies that the work be provided an environment in which intense concentration on the performance of it may be disassociated with any external pressure as to the finality of its execution and may be disassociated from any prior expectation of the fruit of the labour by the worker as well, for to work one has the right, not to the fruits thereof. Freedom is, thus, the unconditional condition for the proper fruition of work and the flourishing of civilisation. For only in freedom from the pressures of expectation does a work attain to dignity as work itself and not in terms of its utilitarian effects. Where such freedom obtains and work is performed in an atmosphere of amity, peace and goodwill without undue pressures of performance or expectation, work is performed best and with intense concentration. And such work alone produces the highest fruition and is the cause of human progress. Where thought of the result of work has been given up, work has been performed best. And this is the secret of KARMA YOGA.