Balance Spiritual Life and Work Life

Balance Spiritual Life and Work Life

July 2016

Human beings have two options, either to devolve downwards or evolve upwards to divine consciousness. Many of us who are trying to evolve to Divine Consciousness face the hurdle of working to earn our living while struggling to meditate and hold on to spiritual principles in our work place, besides making space and time for family. Most of the time for most of us it's a very big challenge. Even the most dedicated ones fail. Some of us dream of a day when we don't have to worry about earning money but instead immerse ourselves in meditation and divine consciousness. This article discusses some small simple steps by which we can align and balance our spiritual and work life. Only work and no meditation makes us equally unbalanced as when we only meditate and don't work. Sri Yukteshwar said that So long as you breathe the free air of earth, you are under obligation to render grateful service. He alone who has fully mastered the breathless state is freed from cosmic imperatives. Yogananda says To fulfill one's earthly responsibilities is indeed the higher path, provided the yogi, maintaining a mental un-involvement with egotistical desires, plays his part as a willing instrument of God. Meeting work and family commitments are an important part of our Dharma. Objective is not to remove all these, so called distractions, but find a way to be in divine consciousness even when we are involved in these activities besides doing our daily meditation. What we achieve in meditation should seamlessly flow into the other part of our life where we spend maximum amount of time. Indeed it would be a shame if the only time we are with God is when we meditate. Take God everywhere with you. When we are focused in our work it is so easy to forget. This forgetfulness is the biggest challenge we face. There are simple ways to combat this  One is to have little reminders around you so that between pauses of work you are reminded of it. Photos or alarm on our watches or mobiles which remind us to think of God. You can also use Stillness Buddy which pops up saying of various spiritual teachers every fixed interval as per your configuration to remind you of God. You can practice chanting inwardly as you go about your work. While working try to feel as if you are working in presence of God. Try see God in others whenever possible. After all everyone is made of atoms and electrons, protons, neutrons and ultimately God Particles ;-) and soul. By using these auditory or visual clues you can slowly program your mind to be always in divine consciousness. Another important thing is to see your work as service. Whatever you do try to feel that you are consciously channelling the divine energy to it. Work with full focus, concentration, absorption and with love. Feel that you are doing it for God, Divine mother or your Guru or whatever divine symbolism works for you. Use this divine channelling while replying to email, phone calls, meetings and anything else that you might do in your work. As you feel the flow of love and grace in your work through you, not only will the quality of your deliverables improve but you will be in constant state of meditation. You will start feeling the same peace and joy you feel during meditation in your work. Be disciplined in your work and life. Make time for everything  meditation, having fun, doing work, reading, hobby and being with family. Plan and prioritize. Balance your life. Meditate in the morning and before going to bed. Morning mediation will help you begin the day with calmness and night meditation will help you relax and have a good sleep. Do not read newspaper or email before your morning meditation as it can ruin your meditation. Yogananda said  Be calmly active and actively calm Not to hurry when it is required is being lazy. But while you hurry you should be calm about it and not do it with nervous agitated energy. Observe this habit in yourself and work to become calm even when you are hurrying and about to fail to board the flight or the deadline. Watch out for nervousness and agitation two very energy consuming and magnetism reducing bad habit. Slowly your magnetism will change and you will have more and more balanced life, in harmony with the divine consciousness. First few steps are difficult but if you use your will power to make these first few steps things will come more easily. The higher purpose of life is to see that material success itself is only a steppingstone to perfection. From a yogic point of view, every kind of success is a good thing, for the qualities that bring material success bring also divine enlightenment. Qualities that produce material failure, on the other hand, produce also spiritual failure. A successful dharmic life will lead to spiritually success.