Hari
OM
Application - that is what 'Workings-days' are about!
VEDANTA IN ACTION.
This is the title of a publication from CM which,
whilst it of course has items by Gurudev, also includes selections of writing
from other well-esteemed Gurus from the Vedantic tradition as well as leading
businessmen. Its focus is the working life. We shall be exploring these essays
for the next few weeks on Workings-day as, clearly, they pertain directly to
the premise of this section of AVBlog! As ever, you are encouraged to read back over previous
posts, to ensure full benefit.
Part 2:Fulfillment Through work
Efficiency in Action (Gurudev)
We
have seen that work is inevitable. The quality of work seems to be dependent
not only on the field in which we work, nor on the theme for which we work, but
on the ardour and sincerity, the intention or ideal that has inspired our
hearts when we work.
What
do we mean by action? How best to act? What promotes action and what are the
personality layers that express themselves in through action? In knowing the
mechanism of action, we ought to be able to understand the technique and the
art of adjusting the personality in such a way that action falls under the
highest type of activity, benefiting not just the actor but their community
also. Today, we are all students of science and not ready to accept an idea
unless we clearly know the complete mechanism of it. This is the spirit of the
modern age. Therefore, when the teachers of the scriptures try to explain that
we must work and that the quality of our work depends upon the beauty of our
emotion behind it, we are not ready to accept it. We want to know how these are
connected.
Mechanism of Action.
All
living creature constantly receive stimuli of the five senses. We cannot remain
even a single second in the world without receiving stimuli. One or other of
our sense will always be on the alert, and often, several at the same time.
As
these signals reach the individual, the instrument or mechanism within man
which processes the signals is called the mind. If our mind is not attentive,
we cannot properly see, hear, smell etc and can miss things. If we are worried
or busy with another involving task, the stimulus may be missed. So there can
be these sorts of interruptions further confusing the interaction with the
world. When the signals are received, the mind does not of itself make
responses (other than survival/instinctive ones). It passes what it receives
onto the higher functioning part which is our intellect, the part where
analysis and judgement take place. The intellect is the place which prompts
response to the stimuli.
Intellect
is not a haphazard instrument. Everyone's intellect comes to its conclusions
based upon other factors such as the individuals vaasanas and the recall of
past, similar experiences. It is the vaasanas which can determine our habits;
for example, if a bottle of whiskey is put between a brahmin priest and a
street drunkard, which would have the greatest struggle not to lunge at it? It
is not the bottle, or indeed the contents, which promote the action of
grabbing, but the vaasana of "I must have that alcohol" which is
resident in the street drunk which prompts it. This is an extreme example, but
it is at play in all of us all the time. The ideas and ideals that we already
have in our intellect condition the intellects judgement as how it should
tackle any given stimulus.
Thus,
the outer world enters through the sense organs into the mind, the mind takes
the signals and awaits the intellect's input; the intellect judges the messages
according to the existing vaasanas, judgement is made and an order is returned
via the mind. The mind can thus be considered as both the receiving and
dispatch clerk. Whilst this has been described here, it must also be understood
that all this is happening at an almost instantaneous moment.
The
intellect must come to a judgement; but how each one judges any given situation
is different from another person in the same situation. This is because the
backlog of experiences and the ideas and ideals which inform and inspire
judgement are different between each individual. No one individual can ever
have precisely the same experience-assessment-response ratio as another. This
is uniqueness.
