How exactly is work worship – is bad work also worship?

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Gita’s teaching is that work is worship. How do we define work? There can be good work, there can be bad work.
Actually, although it is commonly said that Gita teaches work is worship, there is no such words in the Bhagavad Gita, which specifically, directly says this. Karma hi pooja hai, that’s what it says in the Gita. But there is no words like that in the Bhagavad Gita.
The closest words is 18.47, which says, sva-karmana tam abhyarcha, siddhim prindhati mahanirvana, sva-karmana, by your work, tam abhyarcha, worship him. So what the Bhagavad Gita is not saying, work is worship. It says, by your work, worship him.
So that’s what it specifically says. So, now, the slogan work is worship is widely used to, in a positive sense also, to recognize that there should be dignity of labor. No work should be looked down upon.
And in that sense, it is a positive principle. Yes, that we should treat all work with dignity. But if we try to make what is a, what could be called a social principle, if we try to make that into a philosophical principle, then that is not very sound, as you rightly said.
Now if a thief says, my work is worship, he will go around robbing. Is he doing worship? Or to speak even more provocatively, if work is worship, then the donkey will become the greatest worshipper. Isn’t it? Is it really? Donkey does a lot of work.
So, it’s not a philosophical principle. But one of the Bhagavad Gita’s important messages that often it was thought that you have, in Indian Sanskrit, they say Artha and Parmartha. Artha means our day-to-day worldly life.
Parmartha is spiritual life. So the common idea among many people is that to pursue Parmartha, you have to give up Artha. You leave this world so that you can pursue God.
But the Bhagavad Gita says you don’t have to do that. The Bhagavad Gita says both of them can be harmonized. So instead of renunciation of work, the Bhagavad Gita talks about renunciation in work.
Renunciation of work means giving up work. Whereas renunciation in work means doing the work with a mood of renunciation. Another verse which talks about karma in the Bhagavad Gita is karmaṇye vādhikāras te mā phaleṣu kadācena.
mā karmaḥ phalaṁ hīrtur bhūr mā te saṅgostva karma This is 2.47 in the Gita. It says that you have a right to your work but you do not have a right to the results of the work. So work without attachment to the results and do not be lazy also.
So what this verse means, this verse is talking about renunciation in work rather than renunciation of work. So for example, a student students can study just for getting marks and then they get marks. But if they want to pursue a subject as a long term career they need deep understanding of that subject.
That’s going to be a lifelong career. And they need to study not just for the person getting marks but also for understanding something. So if we work only for immediate results in any field we may get those immediate results but you will not get a sustainable way result.
So it’s like if you want to have a garden we cannot harvest the plants before sowing the seeds. We cannot invert the process of nature. Similarly, the Bhagavad Gita says that our growth happens when we are not just working for the immediate result.
If we are having a sense of distance from the immediate result and we work with a sense of detachment then we will grow much better. What does this mean, grow much better? See, normally I mentioned in the class we have a vertical relationship with God and we have horizontal relationship with others. Similarly, there is a vertical success that we have in life.
That is, the result which we get will be everlasting. At our core, the Bhagavad Gita explains that we are souls as I said. And the soul is eternal.
And the soul is looking for eternal love, eternal happiness. And that comes only when we have a relationship with an eternal person. An eternal person is God.
What the Bhagavad Gita says is we live in this world and we will naturally pursue success, happiness, progress, wealth. That’s all natural in life. But if that is all that we limit ourselves to, if that is all that we pursue, then we may get it, we may not get it.
But whatever it is, that result will be temporary. But if we connect our Artha with Parmartha, our worldly pursuits, if we connect them with God, that means we connect God and the world through an intention of devotion. Like sometimes, I’ll just take a philosophical detour to illustrate this point.
Sometimes people ask that if God created everything, who created God? Now this question reflects a very fragmented understanding of God. You think God is one person, this is another person, God is one thing, this is another thing, this is another thing, this is another thing. So where did this thing come from? But God exists in an entirely different scheme.
It’s like a child may read a novel for the first time. In the novel there is a hero, there is a heroine, there may be a villain. Child reads the whole novel and then after that the child comes to know oh there is an author.
Then again the child goes through the whole novel. But where is the author in the novel? The author is not in the novel. The author exists in an entirely different frame of existence.
The author has created the timeline, the storyline, the characters, but the author exists outside the frame of the book. So like that, God exists outside the frame of the book. God exists outside this world.
But God doesn’t exist only outside. Just like the author is a person outside, but the author is also the person who has written the storyline of the book. So like that, God exists beyond this world and God exists within this world.
But when he exists within this world, he is not limited by this world. So when we work in the world, so if you are a student, you are studying. Now we can study to prove that I am a gentler person, I will become a topper, I will show the whole world how great I am.
That is one intention for studying. But the other intention is that we understand that I have been given some talents. These are coming from God.
So what we are is God’s gift to us. What we become is our gift to God. What we are is God’s gift to us.
So talents we have, it is for us to develop those talents. So talent plus temperament leads to achievement. So talent is, all of us have been given different talents in different ways by God.
But what the spiritual wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita helps us to do is develop a sound temperament. Where we are not shaken by the ups and downs of life, but we pursue a long term goal. So talent plus temperament will lead to achievement.
And what is that achievement that the Bhagavad Gita talks about? It’s not that we reject our career or neglect our career. But we recognize that this life and the next life, our pursuits in this world and our eternal pursuits, both can be harmonized with an intention of devotion. So work is not automatically worship, but work can be related to worship.
If our heart is devoted to God, that means in our day, we have some time for direct devotion to God. Like we chanted the Mandhari Krishna Mahamantra. We have some time for chanting the holy names.
Some time for doing directly devotional activities. And those create a connection with God. Those activities imbue our heart with a devotional intention.
And then when we go out and work, we are working not just to prove to the world how great I am, but to do justice to the talent that God has given us. And to use those talents in a mode of contribution and service. And in that way, we will work, we will perform, but we will do it with a higher, nobler intention.
Arjuna was the person to whom Krishna spoke the Bhagavad Gita. And Arjuna was a great archer. And although he had some innate talent, he also worked hard to hone his archery skills.
So, he was devoted to God, and his devotion inspired him further to use his archery skills in the service of God. So, we can make our work into worship by, first of all, devoting some exclusive time for directly worshipping God. And then imbuing our rest of life with a devotional intention.
With a devotional aspiration to our life. That whatever I am doing, I am doing it in a mode of service to God and doing justice to whatever talents and gifts He has given. Does that answer your question? Thank you.
Yeah, please. I am wondering about relationships, attachment to relationships.