  | ||
 |
Working with God
Excerpts from Swami Kriyananda's forthcoming book,
The Promise of Immortality in the Bible and the Bhagavad Gita
For
one who is sincerely seeking God, the important thing is to develop an ever-deepening awareness of God's presence—not during meditation only, but in every activity. What counts most is the intention behind a deed.
In the Gospel of St. Luke, we see that Jesus scolded Martha for being too much centered in her work rather than in God. Her sister Mary had been sitting quietly at his feet. "But one thing is needful," he said, "and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her."
In the story of Martha and Mary, it wasn't what Martha was doing that Jesus criticized, but her consciousness while doing it. Mary's "better part" lay in her silent attunement to Christ, not in the fact that she was seated before him instead of working in the kitchen.
While it is right and good to work for God and to offer up to Him all that we do, the more divinely attuned we are during our activity the more closely we are drawn, by means of it, to God. Meditation is necessary also. Mental botheration while working for God brings us no inner peace, which alone can lift the soul up to higher consciousness.
Action performed from a center of deep inner stillness is more beneficial, even outwardly, than action performed for its own sake. This point is of immense practical value. For people imagine, as Martha did, that to do anything well requires total immersion in one's work. Few realize that everything they do is an outward expression of their consciousness.
The Path of Right Action
Martha's service, it must be understood, was by no means wrong in itself. It was merely, considering her spiritual potential, inadequate. Jesus reprimanded her because of that potential. She might have received greater blessings had she served him with inner peace. Even if she lost touch with inner peace as she worked, if she'd continued thinking about God Jesus would have been able gradually to draw her closer to divine consciousness. He was saying, "Be more God-conscious; see His presence in everything you do." His praise of Mary was for her God-centeredness.
The Secret of True Happiness
In the third chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says, "By the path of right action alone, Janaka and others attained perfection." Janaka was a royal sage in ancient India, who achieved divine union by his inward spiritual focus in the midst of intense outer activity. He demonstrated a perfect balance between inwardness and outwardness, and showed thereby that work done for God is soul-liberating if it is performed both diligently and with love for God.
Janaka was born spiritually great. A lesser person would not have attained perfection by work alone. Meditation is necessary for most people as a means of centering themselves in the Self. But so also is outward activity for God necessary. One who only meditates, unless he can do so superconsciously, is in danger of sinking into a mire of indolence. Outer activity helps by lifting one's meditative peace to a state of dynamic inner calmness.
Jesus was saying, however, that, of the two activities, inner communion—that "good part" played by Mary—is the more important. For the more we are calm and at rest in our own center, the more we succeed at anything we attempt. The Bhagavad Gita, in the 56th stanza of Chapter Two, states: "He who is not shaken by anxiety during times of sorrow, nor elated during times of happiness; who is free from egoic desires and their attendant fear and anger: Such a one is of steady discrimination."
Worldly people are tossed up and down endlessly on rising and falling waves of pleasure and pain, success and failure, happiness and sorrow, fulfillment and disappointment. The Bhagavad Gita teaches that the secret of true happiness is inner tranquillity: not the delusive peace of spent emotions, but the deep calmness attained when one has transcended his emotions.
Non-attachment
Non-attachment does not imply indifference; nor does calmness imply aloofness. Rather, both enable people to expand their awareness. This expansion may be compared to a river opening out onto a vast ocean, whose depths are not affected by surface activity. The non-attachment referred to by the Gita in this passage, and the calm inwardness which Jesus praised in Mary, should not be confused with apathy. Such is the popular, but erroneous, caricature of stoicism. True non-attachment is achieved not by dulling one's sensibilities, but only by deepening one's Self-awareness. Perfect Self-realization is the fruit of daily, deep meditation. With self-expansion comes a universal identity, which replaces the all-separating delusion of ego-consciousness.
In the silence of inner communion, the soul rises above its identification with petty human nature and its turbulent passions, to soar through radiant light into infinite freedom and eternal bliss.
For information and reservations:
info@ananda.it Tel: +39 0742-81.36.20 Fax: +39 0742-81.35.36
Ananda is located in the tranquil hills of Umbria, Italy on “Strada Statale 444” between Assisi and Gualdo Tadino. It is the largest retreat center in Europe for Yogananda’s teachings.
Ananda Associazione • Via Montecchio, 61 • I-06025 Nocera Umbra (PG) • ITALY