Work: The Prayer of the Body

You have to know that you can feel God's Presence in anything you do. When you are eating, you can feel that the food is God. While you are feeding your child, feel that you are not feeding him but rather the God within him. While you are talking to someone, feel that you are talking to the divinity in him. If you can be conscious of God while you are doing something, then you can feel that God has entered into your activity. Then whatever you are doing is with God and for God. If you can keep your consciousness high and maintain peace of mind while working, then your work itself is a true form of meditation.

Right now, when you are working, you may not think of God, or you may not feel the reality of God. You see physical work as just work. But if you can see work as an opportunity to express your capacity, or to reveal your goodness, your divinity, then most certainly you are working for God at that time. Please feel that everything you do is dedicated service. In that way, you will not feel that you are wasting your time.

If you feel that you are doing something because you have been asked to do it from within, then you will have the greatest joy. You are not the doer; you are only a dedicated instrument serving a higher Reality. If you can feel this, then you will get joy no matter what you do. Even if you are doing something mechanical or something that is absolutely uninspiring, you will get the greatest joy, because you are serving a higher cause.

If you wish to be constantly helped and guided by the Supreme, please remind yourself of Him in the morning, as soon as you get up. Then think of the things that you do daily. You do twenty, thirty or forty things each day. Before you do each thing, you should try to remember the Supreme. Just before you are about to eat, think of the Supreme. After you have spoken with someone and you are just about to speak with somebody else, meditate for a minute. And if you see that you do not have the time, then try to meditate as soon as you are free. Each time you change your activity, meditate on the Supreme for just one minute. Your meditation should be soulful and not mechanical.

You have to feel that work, if you do it devotedly, is the prayer of the body. When you are doing even the most minor, insignificant act, such as sharpening your pencil, you should feel that the capacity you have for sharpening the pencil, for utilising your hands to hold it, has come directly from God. When you dedicate all your outer actions to God, this capacity you are giving directly back to God. When you do this for minor activities, immediately you see that God gives you infinitely more power when you enter into more complicated, more meaningful, more purposeful activities. Whatever you do, please try to think that you are given the opportunity to do that by God; think that you are doing something which is ultimately leading you towards your realisation.

The devotion-musician in me Is all ready to play God's Song of Love Upon my heart-strings In the New Millennium.

- Sri Chinmoy

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