Saturday, March 3, 2012

Combining Professional Ambitions with Spirituality

Just happened to read one of the basic spiritual scriptures of mankind- Shreemad Bhagawat. I always like to read such scriptures time and again to feel the zeal of relaxation that nothing else can provide. Importantly enough, I feel reading such texts makes you realize futility of striving hard for unattainable things. rather, striving for anything while thinking continuously about the fruit of labor is the prime reason behind any suffering.

Karma-yoga deals with working without thinking of the fruit. That does not mean though that there shouldn't be any target. We should keep our aim at the target and work with adequate planning but the downfalls of the process shouldn't bother us. We should free ourselves of the negative influences and comments that keep bothering us throughout the process of our work.

Combining spirituality with apt work is the crux of a happy life. One has to be happy or contented in his or her outlook towards life. I often feel that the undue stress while excelling in a certain field almost always leads to unnecessary delays in our work as well as spiritual development. It is one of the hardest things to attain this balance. But if we have it deep in our hearts to make it happen, we automatically start progressing towards this goal in life. Rather I would like to say that the almighty (who is One!) makes us progress towards the spiritual goal while attaining our Prapanchik (day to day) goals.

Many times I feel the dilemma why cannot I devote more time for my Adhyatmik pursuit. I am in awe of our adhyatmik scriptures and feel completely myself and immersed in the glory of almighty when I read them. Day before yesterday when I was again struck by this dilemma, I was guided by a note on facebook of Shri Gondavalekar Maharaj (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Shri-Gondavalekar-Maharaj/309538732408872) It is in marathi; so don't know if many people can benefit from it. But it says, Many people do a side-business. It is the business done along with the main business. And we should see our vocation as a side business along with our spiritual pursuit as the  main business. Smartly enough, we should understand that pursuing main business takes up not more than 4 to 6 hours of the day. The remaining time should be devoted to our spiritual pursuit if you truly desire. Well, I am happy with this answer given to me by almighty. True that we devote much more time (perhaps) to our daily duties but at least we can cut short of the wastage of time that we do daily on vague pursuits. That time can be constructively used to build our firm foundation spiritually and feel the bliss that is hard to explain.

Only one can feel the bliss in the spiritual pursuit (It may vary from person to person). But it is this pursuit that keeps me out of stress despite being engulfed by stressful situations at times. Most wonderfully, this pursuit never takes you off the track as far as your professional ambitions are concerned. You rather become more focused, more disciplined, and more enthusiastic of your work ethic!