Rewards of Work
Friday March 4 2005 08:33 IST
By Karmayogi
Rewards of work coming to us is luck. Greater rewards than the work deserves coming to us is Grace. There is a further stage called Supergrace. Hardworking men drudge all their lives for a pittance.
At the end of their lives, called the evening of life, they exclaim, What have I gained by the monotony and drudgery of my whole life? There is not even enough to provide for my old age.
About two thousand years ago, they calculated that longevity was less than 20 years, though a few people lived up to a ripe old age. Today, all over the world the average lifespan is 60 and over. Because man was a body, physical, he survived as long as he worked. He died like a toothless tiger when he was unable to exert his limbs for a living.
When we hear that the rewards of work are not enough and they go to other people, we know this comment comes from a physical man in whom the mind is ill-developed. There are others whose services are exploited by other clever men. In our country, life is so organised that whosoever works hard will witness the phenomenon of the rewards of his work going to another, often the undeserving.
Over a long period of colonial rule, our government departments, families, companies and our entire lives have been so organised that the dishonest man can thrive. So we have come to the conclusion, The Time is NOT for good men. Well, that is true, but it is not the whole Truth. Grace acts occasionally. Rewards go to the right man. Supergrace is a rare incident on divine occasions. Then rewards that are not your due or your due ten years later or rewards that should go to the entire organisation come to you as if you were the chosen receptacle for all the grace in the atmosphere.
We see there are persons who cannot express to their authorities what work they have done. There are others who have an extraordinary talent of wrongly presenting their own strength and receiving a punishment instead of a reward. In a changed social atmosphere that encourages the invalid, we see the same wilful organisation going out of its way to discover a desert in the unfortunate. Tradition seeks moksha. Sri Aurobindo seeks transformation which means our defects are to be changed into their opposite strengths. How to do it?
One who never speaks or who cannot explain himself decided to avail of this Force of Transformation. He did so by surrendering himself to that Force, putting himself gladly in its hands. The evaluation of his work revealed that he was the BEST performer, the very BEST in his whole organisation. What we cannot secure, this Force secures for us. In doing so, it does it abundantly, as it can act only thus. Why should we doubt whether the rewards of our work will come to us at all? They are there for the asking.