UNMOTIVATED WORK: TEACHING SPIRITUALITY TO SO CALLED SPIRITUAL PEOPLE

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It has been a long time I have been in the Adhyatmika discourse. Srimadh Bhagvat Geeta, Ashtavakra Geeta, Tao te Ching and Dhammapada ka a few discourses I have been exposed to by my Guru, Osho Rajneesh. Along with that, as my Guru said to me once, choose one of these discourses as your master discourse and follow that. As I found myself closer to the discourse of Buddhism, I started Vipassana meditation. So, in a nutshell, this is till now, a summary of my "Adhyatmika Discourse". As I do not like the way Aadhyatma is presented by its practitioners in India, I have tried numerously to clarify it to my friends and family although it was all in vain because, I think they either reduce it to some high heavenly principle or they disregard it as some religious dogma. Most of my peers consider spirituality as a philosophical discourse. Others think it is a diversion of mind from the main tasks of life such as career making. I have certain points in my mind which I will try to put in a pointwise manner, namely, 


1. Spirituality is not a tool to calm your anxiety.  

    Most people try to calm themselves using religious or spiritual sermons. The most famous of them all is "The unmotivated action" or "Nishkama Karm yoga". I believe nobody among my peers understand it. To claim that I understand it might seem as being arrogant, but this does not change the reality. I do understand it. Let us try to state here. 


2. Can you do something at all without any motivation or anticipation of result in mind? 

    Of course, this is not normal behavior. Most people think using spirituality, you can be a mentally healthy person. No, this is not healthy at all. I mean it is, but not in the same way as you like it to be. You think a spiritual person to be excellent in whatever he does, a sort of extraordinarily successful person. I say, it is actually the most anti-spiritual one can get. In reality, A person in Nishkama Karm Yog, will be quenched in whatever he does or whatever he gets. He is not wishing to be successful. He is just thankful that at least he got this opportunity to work. So, the work becomes the result in itself, and it satisfies the needs of the person even before the results come out. 

A Nishkami person is a person satisfied already. Even if he fails, he remains satisfied. But ask yourself, are you a Nishkami Person? Can we even in your dreams escape the causality of everyday life you have developed for yourself? You work for a job; you study to succeed in an exam. You study to make your father proud. You want to be successful in order that you stop your father from toiling at work. As sweet these intentions might seem, as long as they are there, you will remain unsatisfied. 


3. Intentions, however good they sound, are reasons for you being miserable. 

    Many people think spirituality will make them an efficient employee. No, it will not. It has no obligations to help you in studies or at work. As long as you are doing something for some result, and you derive your efficiency from there, you are bound to be miserable. You, as a worldly person, are supposed to be progressive, but nature is not progressive. Progressiveness and repressiveness are man-made attributes. Rivers do not flow to supply water; it flows precisely because that is the only thing it can do. Trees are not there to serve you with fruits. They are there because they can be there. There are abundant circumstances for their existence. Nature is like that Government employee that does work because it is office time and there is really nothing else that can be done. "Zindagi mein aaye hain toh jee lete hain,  that is precisely the attitude of the spiritual person. That is why, spirituality is hard. As the protagonist of the film "Ankhon Dekhi" says, "Life enjoy kar rahe hain, aur option kya hai?" 


4. Spirituality is hard 

     Most people, including my peers, think spirituality is a cakewalk and that this will make them a better professional in their jobs. It is not obligated to be so. It is actually the next step to Nihilism. The moment you start seeing "Fizool-ness" or "uselessness of desire itself", that is the time, Eastern philosophy supplies you with practices such as Vipassana, which have just one aim, to find a joy in purely existing, rather than a continuous zeal to become something. What is there to become? What can you become other than what you already are. But, as I say and conclude, "Ab ye sasur inko samajh aaye tab na, ye saale spirituality ke chode, Bhagwaan tumhare baap ka naukar toh hai nahi ki tum aankh band karke puja karega toh tera kaamna pura kar dega". 


The most spiritual poem is what I will end it here, Ironically, it is by a Communist Poet, Pablo Neruda. 


                

Keeping Quiet
Pablo Neruda

 

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still
for once on the face of the earth,
let's not speak in any language;
let's stop for a second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.

Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would not look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.

Life is what it is about...

If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with
death.

Now I'll count up to twelve.
and you keep quiet, and I will go.

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