Page 50 - NAMAH-Oct-2020
P. 50

Namah                                  Vol. 28, Issue 3, 15th October 2020





        lapse into laziness or inertia but can discover  because you worked for someone else. Are
        the wholeness and beauty of life behind  we not to work for ourselves too? For our
        all externalities. This is needed both for  aesthetic mind, for our inner being and for
        adults and children. The pandemic can be  our soul deep inside that carries the Truth
        seen to provide an excellent opportunity for  of our being?” They did not reply. Some of
        introspection, self-development, creativity  them hung their heads in shame.
        and personal growth.
                                                 Epilogue
        What is work?
                                                 We can now understand Sri Aurobindo’s
        I was invited to speak to a group of highly  recommendation that one must know not
        placed officers who had retired from a famous  only to work but also not to work. And he
        industrial plant. These were people who had  tells that the ability of not to work must be
        run the plant and they had been allotted huge  cultivated in our personality. This means that
        bungalows with spacious gardens during  we are not called to lapse into inertia. We
        their service tenure. Now after retirement  are called upon to develop a poise of inner
        they felt impoverished. They told me that  being where peace and silence and inaction
        they were proud to be occupied with work  can support a life of dynamism and action.
        during their service and they now felt that  Strength that emanates from such an inner
        life was meaningless in retirement. I asked  poise is more powerful than the strength in
        them, “Have you only worked and worked?”  the outer being. It is the soul-strength that
        They told that their commitment to work  rules an eventful life. It is the impersonality
        was paramount. I asked them, “You have  that allows the personality to act effortlessly.
        lived in bungalows with big gardens and had
        gardeners who worked for you, all supported  References
        by your company. Have any of you woken
        up at 3 am to stand and observe how a bud   1.   Sri Aurobindo. The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo,
        in your own garden blooms into a flower?   Volume 29. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram
        At least once in the 20 or 30 years you have   Trust; 2013, p. 274.
        lived there? Why were you given houses with
        gardens and gardeners? You never had time   2.  Ibid., p. 285
        to see the beauty of a flower blooming in your
        own garden? Is not that also a work? You   3.  The Mother. The Collected Works of the Mother,
        have worked for your company, that was     Volume 3. Cent ed. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo
        great but at the end that was a compromise   Ashram Trust; 1977, pp. 66-68.








          Dr. Soumitra Basu, a practising psychiatrist and member of SAIIIHR, is the Director of a school of
                psychology, Integral Yoga Psychology. He is also one of the editors of NAMAH.


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