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The True Worker

Doing ‘Seva’ (Dedicated service) to the country or the community


in the cultural field is a subtle art and every one is not fit for it. By
paying wages you can get any number of workers, but the number
available men for supervisory cadre would be very much less.
Architects, for ex, would be also lesser in number while creative
thinkers are always very few in the world. Greatly lesser in number
than the creative thinkers are the cultural workers and this is so
because the cultural worker must have true sympathy for all living
beings.

You can be a religious man, a spiritual man but to impart religion


and spirituality to others and watch their progress in cultural
edification is vastly subtle and to work therein, the individuals
must have special qualifications.

Cultural work is by its nature creative work which demands a


response from that for which it is created. The true “Seva”
(dedicated worker) should not expect recognition of his work from
either the people or from his own organization. To hope for
patronage from the public is futile because it is in the nature of his
work that no one will patronize and very few will understand him.
But once the public does recognize the cultural worker, they will
lay enough adulation at his feet even to the point of destroying
him. Either way, the cultural worker faces hazard.

You, the worker must be capable of surviving both neglect and


appreciation. That itself; is a great “Tapascharya (austerity)” and
this capacity you can discover in yourself only when you fall in
love with the work and not with the persons or the institutions.

This is called “fanaticism”, but without its bad odor. You do your
work with fervor because you are convinced that it is “the thing to
be done”. You do it not necessarily for your sake, not necessarily
for your country’s sake or that of your community, but you do it
out of a strong conviction that, that must be done, and not to do it
would be an agony. If that feeling has not come in you, you can all
be labeled only as “Sevak”; you cannot work effectively in the
field of culture.

For this reason, though we have many great souls and great leaders
of thought, where few have been able to achieve anything or leave
a mark on the cultural life of the country. Mighty men they may
be. They could start schools and hospitals, but to leave the country
at the end of their lives at least one inch more supreme in its
cultural and moral life, one should be made of sterner material.
Ordinary mortals with their sentimental emotions, with all their
weakness and passions cannot achieve it. The cultural leader may
not even look like a hero, but his dynamism will come from the
self-sufficiency within himself, from the conviction of his goal and
of his programme to achieve it.

Without conviction no real work is possible for the true worker.


This conviction can never be thrust from above. It must come from
within. We must fall in love with our ideal, the very purpose of our
work. From the glory of our “Vision” within, will come gloriously
effective work outside.

By conviction I do not mean an intellectual conviction, but


incapacity to be otherwise. Your work must compel you to act. It
must be an intimate as your breathing. Even when you are
drowning deep under water, when you know air is not there, still
you breathe in the water. Why? Without breathing you cannot
remain. The muscles in your thorax, the muscles of your face and
throat will demand it. Just as the compulsion is there to breathe
under water, if one feels such compulsion, then not to work is
agony to him. Such an individual is the True worker in the spiritual
life.
To be a true worker is in itself, the greatest tapas that is known to
us. It is a great sadhana (spiritual practice) because you cannot take
away your mind from it. There is no other greater tapas possible.

It is not always by money that you become useful. Give your


spiritual wealth. Give those ideals that you have thought out,
understood and lived, so that a man, having come once near you,
should always hunger to come back. That is the quality of a sevak.

The true spiritual worker must calmly work in the face of jealousy,
passions and competitions, even within his own institution. You
cannot avoid these things. But to expect it to be otherwise is
foolish. Our work is not outside this world, and this is the nature of
the world. Also in the world, in trying to do good, you are likely to
get only kicks. Don’t wait for the consolation of getting
appreciation from other. Discover goodness in yourself. Seek
others and do as much good as you can. You will then find that
every moment is rewarding. You will find your happiness in the
feeling of doing what you wanted to do in the world. This must be
the attitude of sevaks, the workers.

Seek peace in the midst of the turmoil. Remember Gandhiji who


said to a serene swami of Uttarkasi, “In peace there is peace. Why
should I seek it? I am seeking peace in the midst of restlessness.”

We too, have carved for ourselves a momentous plan of


tremendous work. We are moving into restlessness. The noblest
sadhana of the highest order is for each of us to carry out mental
peace wherever we go. “That supreme equanimity of the true
worker, HIS mighty sevak”

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