The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 6

FATIGUE AND WORK

Fatigue, it is said, comes from overwork. The cure for fatigue is therefore rest, that is, do-nothing. But the truth of the matter is that most often fatigue is due not to too much work, but rather too little work, in other words, laziness or boredom. In fact, fatigue need not come too soon or too easily, provided one knows how to go about his work. If you are interested in your work, you can continue for a very long time without fatigue; and precisely one of the means of recovering from fatigue is not to sit down and slip into lethargy and tamas, but to take up a work that rouses your interest. Work done in joy and quiet enthusiasm is tonic: it is dynamic rest. A work done without interest, as a sort of duty or task, will naturally tire you soon. The remedy therefore against fatigue is to keep the interest awake. Now, there is a further mystery. Interest does not depend upon the work: any work can be made interesting and interesting to a supreme degree. There is no work which is by itself dull, insipid, uninteresting. All depends upon the value you yourself put upon it; you can choose to make it as attractive as a romance, as significant as a symbol.

Page 32

How to do it? How to find interest in any thing or all things? Is there not a work that conforms to your nature, adapted to your character and capacity? And are there not works that are antagonistic to your grain, that lie outside your scope and province?

The question is not about your scope and capacity. All depends upon your attitude, the consciousness with which you approach a work, especially when you are a sadhak. When a work comes to you or when you have to do a work, you must take it up as a thing worth doing. Whatever the value given to it normally or you usually put upon it, you should not neglect or merely tolerate it, but welcome it and set about it with the utmost conscientiousness possible. Even if it were a trifling insignificant thing, a menial affair, for example, do not consider it as mean or beneath your dignity. Directly you begin to do a thing in the right spirit, you will find it becoming miraculously interesting. Try to bring perfection even in that bit of insignificance. Do it with a good will, even if it is scrubbing the floor, telling yourself: "I must do it as best as I can, that is to say, this too I shall do even better than a servant, I shall make the floor look really neat and clean and beautiful." That is the crux of the matter. You should try to bring out the best in you and put it into your work. In other words, the

Page 33

work becomes an instrument of progress. The goodwill, attention, concentration, self-forgetfulness and the control over yourself, over your organs and nerves —the "smaller" the work the more detailed is the control gained—all that are involved in doing a work perfectly, with as much perfection as it is possible for you to command, are elements called forth in you and help you to make a better man. Indeed a work for which you have no preferential bias, to which you are not emotionally attached, even indifferent normally, may be of especial help, for you will be able to do it with less nervous disturbance, with a large amount of detachment and disinterestedness.

Man usually chooses his work or is made to choose a work because of a vital preference, a prejudice or notion that it is the kind in which he can shine or succeed. This egoistic vanity or opportunism may be necessary or unavoidable in ordinary life; but when one wishes to go beyond the ordinary life and aspires for the true life, this attachment or personal choice is more an impediment than a help to progress, towards finding the way to the true life. The Yogic attitude to work therefore is that of absolute detachment, not to have any choice, but to accept and do whatever is given to you, whatever comes to you in your normal course of life and do it with the utmost perfection possible. It is in that way and that way alone that all

Page 34

work becomes supremely interesting, and all life a miracle of delight.

This does not mean, however, that there is no work natural to you, for which you have a special aptitude in and through which your soul, the Divine, can express itself fully and wholly in a special manner. But what is that work? The kartavyam karma—the work that demands to be done—deriving from your swa-dharma—your Self-nature? Evidently, it is not that of your superficial nature, which the mind chooses, the vital prefers and the body finds convenient. To come by your true or soul work, you have to pass through a considerable discipline, a rigorous training.

You cannot throw off this work and that at random declaring they are not the work fit for you or jump at anything that your fancy favours. Indeed, you cannot give up anything, cast out anything, simply because it is unpleasant or not sufficiently pleasant. The more violently you try to shake off a thing, the more it will try to stick to you. Instead of that, you must know how to let a thing drop of itself, quietly, automatically and definitively. That is the only way of getting rid of an unwanted or an unnecessary thing. Before all, be sincere to yourself: that is to say, try to follow the highest light and aspiration in you each moment, and be faithful to that and that alone. Never allow yourself to be shaken or moved by the likes and

Page 35

dislikes of your mind or heart or body. Do even what goes against the grain of your body or heart or mind, if it is presented to you as the thing to be done; do it as calmly, dispassionately and as perfectly as it is possible for you to do and leave the rest to your higher destiny. If you belong all to your soul, if you are obedient to the Divine alone, then as this consciousness and poise grows clearer and steadier in you, you will find things that are not consonant with it are dropping off from you quietly and without any effort or reaction from you, like autumn leaves from branches that supply the sap no more. Your work is changed, your circumstances are changed, your relations with things and persons are changed automatically and inevitably in accordance with the need and demand of your soul-consciousness.

Page 36