I didn’t make soil, or
blood, or light. I didn’t make the water I drink. I didn’t cause the sun to
hang in the sky or the crops to grow. I didn’t design the system by which
plants cast off oxygen as a waste product, oxygen that keeps me alive. Nor did
I extract the crude oil from the ground and refine it into gasoline to fuel my
car. And I wouldn’t, for the life of me, know how to make a car from scratch either.
I didn’t grow the cotton, weave and dye the cloth, or sew
it into these clothes. I didn’t invent language, write the world’s literature,
or teach myself how to read. I didn’t discover electricity, design this
computer, pave these roads, build this house, or make all the art that lends
depth, significance, and beauty to it all.
My life is supported by countless natural systems, and
the work of hundreds of thousands of people who I’ll never meet.
I
don’t do anything. I just get up in the morning, put on my pants, drink some
coffee, and try to keep up. Everything I do, everything I build, everything I
create, is only possible because of the boundlessly supportive universe in
which I find myself. All creation is co-creation. There is no such thing as the
self-made man. Even if you pulled yourself up by your own bootstraps, somebody
else made the bootstraps.
In Vedanta philosophy these dynamic relationships are
known as dharma. The Sanskrit word dharma comes from the root dhri meaning to support, to sustain, or to
hold. In its most basic sense, dharma is the supportive nature of universe,
including the laws of physics, the maxims of biology, and the breathtaking
harmony of all of these systems nested within systems that make life possible. But
it doesn’t stop there. Dharma also means the social order, the way human ingenuity
weaves a web where all of our contributions intertwine to create sustenance for
us all. We are clever builders with opposable thumbs and an insatiable drive to
create.
There is no such thing as insignificant work. From the
field hand to the brain surgeon, the cafeteria worker to the Nobel laureate,
every human effort matters, because it all exists in an interlocking edifice of
inter-being: pull one brick out and the whole thing comes down.
And now the moral dimension. Dharma imposes an ethical
obligation. It’s imperative that we pitch in. In the same way that we are
supported, we are morally obligated to take the talents, passions, and
abilities we have been given and offer them as contributions to the sustenance
of the universe. For some mysterious reason, the sacred formless source of the
universe took form as you. Trust the source. Allow the fledgling idea that you
are infinitely significant to take flight. There has never before been a human
being exactly like you with your sensibilities, talents, and gifts, nor will
there ever be again. You’re a one-off. And there must be some reason why the
sacred, eternal, formless source of the universe took form as you here in the world
of time-bound, embodied forms. You’re needed.
There is work to do – work only you can do.
When
seen through this lens, the work that we feel called to do is a sacred calling.
Our calling is that still, quiet voice within us nudging us to take risks,
think big, and throw ourselves into the flow of our own best life. Something’s
tugging us toward self-actualization the way sunlight tugs the branches of
trees upward in ever grander expressions of themselves. How do we discover our
dharma? Your mind doesn’t know, but your heart does. Your love will lead you to
your purpose. As the Sufi poet Rumi put it, “Let yourself be silently drawn by
the pull of what you really love.”
You have eyes. You see the woundedness of the world. You
have a heart. You feel the pain of injustice and cruelty. You have ears. You
hear the quiet voice of the truth hidden just beneath the din. You have hands
and a mind and two strong legs. You can help. In fact, your own happiness
depends on it. As we feed we are fed. As we teach we are taught. As we heal we
are healed. As we love we are loved. Our joy arises only insofar as we are able
to lift the joy of others.
As you discover the places where your passion meets the
needs of the world, you are uncovering your dharma. And when you live in accord
with your dharma – when you are true to your sacred purpose – two amazing
things happen. One, life gets easier. It gets easier because you feel yourself
being lifted. You’re no longer struggling alone. Allies and resources
mysteriously show up when you least expect them. And two, the quality of your
work elevates. Your work is better now because you are weaving your unique contributions
into the supportive outpouring of literally everything else. In cosmic cooperation,
our efforts are amplified.
In chapter three of the Vedanta classic The Bhagavad Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna,
“Every selfless act is born from Brahman, the eternal, infinite Godhead. He is
present in every act of service. All life turns on this law.” In other words,
in the consciousness of surrender to your higher purpose, working not for your
own gain but in the consciousness of service, the flow of the universe is
pouring forth from you like water from a fountain. You are not doing the work,
the work is doing you. In the theologies of the west, where God is personified,
a similar concept is found. It only sounds different. Jews, Christians, and
Muslims say things like “God, use me. Make me an instrument. Lead me where you
want me to be. Tell me what you want me to say. Thy will, not mine be done.”
The result is the same – selfless action performed not for self-interest but
for the good.
Peak performance in any endeavor is realized only through
self-forgetting. When we are attached to selfish outcomes, we fail. When we put
other’s needs first and act for the sheer joy of it with no attachments to
specific outcomes, our egos disappear leaving an opening through which the
light of the divine reveals itself. We didn’t need to seek greatness, we had
only to get out of its way.
All work is service. We must cultivate the consciousness
of seeing our work as a love-offering. This shift will liberate us from the
chains of craving and attachment. We’ll no longer be working for a private
reward alone. We know we’ll get paid. But we know the wealth and wellness our
work co-creates goes far beyond self-interest, far beyond dollars and cents. As
we work for these larger purposes, our deeper reward will be the embodied knowledge
that we are fast in the arms of a conscious, loving universe. You can’t get
that from your 401K. But you should have one of those anyway.
