Spiritual Value of WORK
By Karmayogi
It is a job for the mother to
compel her child to sit down and do its homework. It is equivalent to
punishment. There are schools which give no homework. They help children to
learn reading at the age of 4 or even 3. Such a child, as soon as she wakes up,
takes a book and starts reading. All day long that child is found reading. The
job of the parent is to continue to supply books. This is not only true in
learning. If you teach workers the right skill of doing their work, they
won't go home until their work is perfectly done.
In a school where rote memory was insisted upon, writing composition was a
punishment. In a year the students used to write twelve compositions of half a
page each. Then they were taught to write English. The whole atmosphere
changed. Every boy was anxious to write. That year they all wrote 45
compositions of 1 page each. About ten students started summarising retold
stories. Most of them did so for ten or fifteen books. Two boys each wrote 600
pages summarising 52 retold stories. Work has a spirit in it. To evoke that
will give great results. The British Cabinet, in the First World War, was
afraid of not getting enough soldiers and pleaded for conscription. A few
members differed and relied on the patriotism of the population. It turned out
that before conscription had been laid down as law, a greater number of youth
than were required had enlisted in the army.
Management believes in authority. Exercise of authority does work. There is an
alternative method, which is better. Release the enthusiasm of the worker. Then
authority will be superfluous. Train the enthusiasm into a skill. In that case,
no supervision will be necessary at all. Each will be conscious of his own
skill. In such an atmosphere it is not easy to make the worker leave the
factory at the closing hour. During the Second World War it happened in England. Workers came to the shift half
an hour early and refused to quit when the shift was over. It is the authority
of work which is far better than the authority of the management. There is
something even greater than the work. It is the Spirit of the work.