A wise person gets to the point where they understand that every single thing in creation has something to give, it has a contribution …the stars, the earthworms, every cell within your body…all of these things contribute to make the whole. You are part of that so you have a job to do. That job we call your dharma, your work. You don’t have to look for it. It is right in front of you. Whatever it is that is being asked of you, that is being put before you, is your work.
· So the whole attitude about work needs to go
through a reset.
Michael Singer
Morning sunlight shining in on me through the kitchen window...how does it get any better than that?
This path I am on to understanding the mind and that which lies beyond the mind is such an adventure. The realizations are so amazing...flooring me really. I just cannot seem to get enough. And then there are these teachers that show up in your life and present these teachings ( all basically the same core teaching expressed in a myriad of ways) and it is like Wow! Hearing that wisdom, a wisdom that is already within you, echoed from the voice of someone else just has an amazing effect. The heart opens to the simple truth of who we are.
I am having such an experience as I read Michael Singer's, living untethered, as I have it whenever I hear him lecture or speak. There is a deep resonance of knowing within me that he taps into and I am stunned by his ability to pull up that inner knowing to my conscious awareness. Sometimes it is like a twisting pinch from a big brother, "Wake up! You have to see what you are doing!" And other times it is like a warm hug of encouragement reminding me that "You can do this! You got this! It is so simple! You just got to want it! You just have to open your eyes and try!"
He doesn't "own" the stuff he teaches. It comes from wisdom traditions centuries of years old which in turn come from inner exploration of the truth of who we are from many wise masters who dived within. It is a universal wisdom he shares, a universal wisdom that lies within each and everyone of us...right there waiting for us to tap into it. He has a way of pointing us in that direction and making us see how "simple" the whole process of waking up could actually be.
Anyway, yesterday morning I was interviewed for being put on a casual list for part time work. I was successful. It was an experience full of a variety of emotions. And though the prospect of doing what I love to do again, of having a purpose, some meaning, of the adventure of it, of change,...of actually having an income that might stop me from worrying about getting by, was wonderful and exciting. ..I was also a bit anxious, "Can I physically do this? What if the symptoms all come back when I am out there and I have to go through all that again? Will the pain I am having now interfere with my ability? And what if I am not equipped to do this, skill-set and experience wise? What if work outside the home interferes with my inner work, which is the most important part of my life right now? OMG! What am I doing?"
Immediately after the interview, a video popped up...and like it literally just popped up out of nowhere...entitled, Finding Fulfillment at Work. I listened and I cried. And then I listened again, taking notes and absorbing every word, savoring the learning.
Here I was seeking employment for very "normal" human reasons. For money, for meaning, for a sense of purpose, for adventure, for distraction from the craziness of 'my life', and to prove myself to society by saying, "I do contribute!" I was looking for a job to serve me...asking what can "i" get out of it. This is perfectly normal. We as humans, look to the outside world to gather and collect that which will make us feel better inside and to push away that which will make us feel worse inside. Through applying for this job, part of me was grasping for some type of change that would make things better for "me" inside and at the same time was attempting to push away those things that I told myself were making me feel bad: the lack of income, the struggle, the boredom, the stuckness, and this sense of not 'doing' enough. So though that approach is very human and normal...I am truly seeing that it might not be the way to approach work.
If we truly want to wake up and feel fulfilled...we need to change our attitude about work. Work is a place where we serve, where we can open up and express the beauty of what is inside us. It isn't meant to serve the ego...it is meant to serve the soul. We do not want to use work or the absence of to "fix" us. We fix ourselves while we work.
· Work is a place you go to get rid of your problem, not to solve it. So you start to understand, I need to get rid of me. I don’t need to get things for me. I am causing myself a problem..... If you are a wise being you are not trying to get for yourself, you are trying to get rid of yourself. You are trying to let go of tis lower aspect of yourself, your personal being that thinks the whole world is about you when it isn’t.
We do not want to go to work to get something, we go to work to give and get rid of something in the process and that something is the sense of me-meness we cling to. Sure we express ourselves through our work and that is fulfilling, but the part of us we express when we do that is not the ego...it is the giving and loving soul.
You go to work for the same reason an artist paints in the woods in her spare time when no one will ever see the painting..... "I have something in me that wants to express itself and work is the manifestation of that expression." And someday you are going to find out that it doesn’t make any difference what you are doing. It is the expression and the act of doing it that brings about joy, that brings about fulfillment. Work is not a place that you go to get something so you can be fulfilled. Work is a place that you go that in sharing and giving you achieve a state of fulfillment.
All is well
Michael Singer & Finding Fulfillment at work https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONOc19yM5wY
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