work

One of the ways in which we define ourself is by our work, our job, profession. It’s a common question when meeting someone: ‘What do you do?’ And by this we mean what is your job? What is your livelihood? What is your profession? It’s also one of the questions that the authorities like to ask, if you are applying for a visa to enter a country: ‘what is your profession?’ I don’t know why they want to know that. Perhaps they try to guess how wealthy you are, or how honest you are. As if lawyers and doctors are somehow more honest than bricklayers. But individually, we can form a great attachment to our work, partly because of this curiosity that we seem to have for each other’s profession.

For many people their work gives a meaning to their life. This is why some people can’t cope with retirement; they go crazy or simply die without that meaning that their work has been giving them. For others, there’s a great fear of having no work. It is felt as the means of survival in the modern day. One’s livelihood: one’s life depends upon this, or so it feels. And yet the reality is, in most nations, few people die just from having no work. There’s usually some way to scrape by; to beg for food or money, or to be supported by the state. So this survival aspect of work is something of an illusion in most parts of the world.

Another great reason we become addicted to work is that it is an occupation. That’s another word isn’t it, an occupation. ‘What is your occupation?’ It occupies us. It occupies our time. It keeps us busy. In fact we have another word: business, busy-ness, that which keeps us busy. And things which keep us busy, which occupy us, are always great for the ego. Doing nothing is very challenging to the ego. So things that somehow consume our time and keep our mind occupied, busy, these things are entertainment for us in a way. They stop us from feeling boredom. And they stop us from noticing silence. It is the very opposite of stillness and silence, the opposite of meditation. So this occupying aspect of work is another reason why, for many of us, it becomes a great attachment.

And then of course there can be prestige, status associated with our job: a job title. Yes, now I am a senior this or that, rather than a junior one. It gives us a position in society. It’s as if there’s a hierarchy, informal perhaps, unwritten perhaps, but nevertheless a hierarchy of importance, a ladder that we are climbing, trying to get above everyone else. Why? To get to the top of what? We don’t seem to question these things. And yet that is the nature of those people who put great energy into their career. They are trying to get somewhere and they are trying to get to the top of something, often without really looking into what it is they are trying to get to the top of.

So for these, and other, reasons we have become attached to work, our particular job or work in general. Can we drop it? Can you have no job? Can you let go of the image that your profession, your livelihood, gives you? It is not so easy. If you want to try it, you might start by reading George Orwell’s ‘Down and Out in Paris and London’. Or you could just quit work and see where life takes you.

And why is this important for the spiritual journey? It is because work is another one of these comfort blankets, by which we create a personal identity, from which our ego is structured. And all of this has to go, if we are to see the reality of the oneness of all of existence. We have to take all the energy out of this personality, out of this little individual identity. We have to stop trying to be better than other people. All of this has to go, if we are to return to our essence.