Work is Worship, and the Fountain for happiness

Work is Worship, and the Fountain for happiness

We are all in search for that ever-elusive quest for happiness. 

Several millennia ago our Indian sages posited in the Purusharthas the blueprint for fulfilment that all persons should aim for: the fourfold path of Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha. Working with them creates a satisfied, meaningful life at the most holistic level. 

There is scores of literature that point to various aspects to gain happiness. From Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs, to Clare Graves, Beck and Ken Wilber postulates on Integral theory which confirms the teleological and evolutionary stages of both moral and cognitive development, that allows for ‘growing up’.

From religion, especially more meditative spiritual practices that allow for self-realization and ‘waking up’, and which allows for the transcendental. Most religion, still get entrenched in archaic, mystical, magical and mythical symbols, and get questioned with ever expanding frontiers of science. 

From literature on EQ/ SQ, that confirms that self-insight is by itself not enough, one needs to add: being sensitive to how one ‘impacts and influences’ others. 

To modern age fads, including power yoga, power foods – all are wishing a slice to fill this insatiable thirst. 

Few have otherwise posited a recent insight I have been exploring: could meaningful work itself be the source of continuous joy? Someone said, ‘The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.” Just think, if we took away the occupation of a person (his meaning), what a wretched world it would be!

Few of us realsie that work is worship: how critical it is to be engaged in something that keeps us busy, otherwise we would be busy with our thoughts – either ‘future thoughts of anxiety’ or ‘past thoughts of nostalgia’. 

Happiness is not a search for something, it is a state. Remember, the oft quoted reference to ‘the journey being more exciting than the destination’? Work provides an opportunity to put mind, heart and all the forces within to potentialise.

When there is work to do, health, wealth and relationships follow. By itself these don’t bring happiness. Work does. Keeping the inner currents moving at work, flowing in the moment, being in a meditative state at work, that is the essence of happiness. Even in physical labour, one actually stops thinking. Show me someone who enjoys his work, and you will see ‘samadhi in action’. 

No wonder the great book ever written, The Gita has us remember, ‘focus on the doing, the deserving will follow’. 

To all my readers, Continue to work with zest, and Keep walking!