All
Work Is Play
by
Ernest Wood
When
purpose and pleasure are brought together work
becomes play. Every bit of work done in this
spirit strengthens the man who does it. It is
recreative as well as creative. Artist and
carpenter -- they make pictures and
chairs, but even more they make men,
themselves.
Think
on what you are doing more than on the result,
or what you are going to do afterwards. You
will not then miss the pleasure of little
things. I pick up my pen; there is a sheer and
undiluted pleasure in this, if I allow myself
to experience it. It is natural and pure, and
mine when I stop fighting it. In such little
things thought, love, and will can flow and
grow. And then arise peace and strength and --
in active life -- the union of work and
play.
Moderation
is another law. Play ceases to be play when
there is fatigue or overstrain. We have much
to learn from the animals and even from the
plants in this respect. "Grow as the
flower grows," says Light
on the Path, "opening your
heart to the sun." Said Jesus:
"Consider the lilies of the field; they
toil not, neither do they spin; and yet I say
unto you that Solomon in all his glory was not
arrayed like one of these."
It
is deadly fear of the morrow that makes man's
work a toil, that makes him sweat in
bitterness. But the law of life says: "Do
the wise and right thing today, and leave the
result to take care of itself." This is
not a doctrine of idleness, but of work that
is play instead of toil.
An
illustration of this is to be seen in the way
in which different people take a long journey.
One man will get into the train and remain in
a fever of impatience until he reaches his
destination. He has fixed his mind on
something that he wants to do there; in the
meantime his journey is a toil and a misery.
Another knows how to use and enjoy the
scenery, the people, and even the train
itself.
These
thoughts bring up in my mind two contrasting
pictures. I see a Western man sitting on his
tractor moving along a field. He does not seem
to be enjoying his work. Perhaps he is
thinking of something else -- of going
to a dance or a cinema. He has been educated
in a practical way but not for the
understanding of life and enjoyment of the
common day.
I
see a Hindu villager tilling a field. I know
what is in his mind. He is perhaps singing to
himself one of the old songs. He is thinking
of the earth and the water that waters the
earth, and he loves them both with every nerve
of his body. If he were a kissing man he would
kiss them, but he belongs to a devotional
race, so he salutes them, and touches them
with a feeling that he is being blessed. He
looks at the grass banks which border his
field. Along their narrow tops he will walk
away from his work at eventide. He will walk
without shoes, and his feet will feel and
respond to the irregularities of the path. As
he comes to each border-tree on that path he
will feel happy, as though he had met a friend
whom he does not fear. And so he will come at
last, without hurry, to his earth-walled and
palm-roofed home, where his wife and children
live, and where his fathers before him have
lived, perhaps for a thousand years.
But
perhaps I have misjudged that Western man.
Perhaps he is thinking not of dance and
cinema, but how when he reaches his home in
the evening he will go out and work in the
garden for a while, touching the soil and the
little plants, with a slightly busy wife and
toddling child near by -- away from the
deadly constructiveness of his daily work,
which even when it gives him elation does not
give him joy, into some simple living with
life.
It
may be said that I have taken extreme cases of
West and East in my contrasting picture. Yes,
that is so, yet there is something in it in
general, and undoubtedly we human beings will
have to bring work and play together for both
our individual and our social redemptions.
THE
FOUR GREAT ENEMIES
It
is said in an old Indian book that there are
four great enemies to human success:
-
(1)
a sleepy heart,
-
(2)
human passions,
-
(3)
a confused mind, and
-
(4)
attachment to anything but Brahman.
(Each
student has to attach his own meaning to
this word -- Brahman -- keeping
it always flexible, so that it may expand
and become illumined. Literally: the
Evolutioner, Grower, or Expander, not
creator.)
A
sleepy heart -- means that the body is
lazy and its activities are slothful.
Human
passions -- means that the emotions are
only reactions from pleasure and pain.
A
confused mind -- means one that still
lacks the wisdom-knowledge that gives it
constancy or unity of purpose.
In
mastering all these you must not aim at
repression or destruction, but at
well-regulated activity, that is, culture.
Physical culture involves the suppression of
irregular activities in the body. It demands
an ordered life, with well-proportioned
exercise, nourishment, and rest. The governing
of the natural appetites which it requires
does not nullify their power, but tunes them
up; and the sense of vigorous life is
increased, not diminished by this control.
These
things are true also of the mind. It too
requires regular and well-proportioned
exercise, nourishment, and rest. Its natural
appetites also need to be controlled and
governed, and when this is done there is no
loss of mental vigor, but an enhancement of
it.
Exercise
is something more than the mere use of
faculty. A man breaking stones on the road is
using his muscles, and certainly in a long
time the muscles he uses become strong. A man
who carries out a definite system of physical
exercises for a short time every day soon
becomes stronger than the man who wields the
hammer all day long. So also, a man who spends
his time in the study of mathematics,
literature, languages, science, philosophy, or
any other subject, is using his mind, and
thinking may become facile to him. But a man
who deliberately carries out a definite system
of mental exercises for a short time every
day, soon gains greater control of his mind
than he who merely reads and curiously thinks
all day long.
In
fact, the need of mental training, of regular,
orderly, purposeful exercise of the mind, is
far greater than that of the body in most
cases; for at our general stage of growth most
men's bodily activities are well-ordered and
controlled, and the body is obedient to their
will, but their minds are usually utterly
disobedient, idle, and luxurious.
Calmness
does not mean dullness or immobility. It means
regular motion and is quite compatible with
rapid motion. So also control of mind does not
mean dullness or stupidity. It means clear-cut
and regular thought, velocity and strength of
mind, vivid and living ideas.
Concentration
Without
the preliminary training which makes the body
calm, control of mind is difficult. A certain
small measure of austerity is imperatively
necessary for great success in concentration.
The reason for this is to be discovered in the
basic rule of the process. That rule is this:
the body must be still, the mind alert.
Determined
perseverance does not usually walk hand in
hand with absence of excitement in human life.
Yet for success the mind must be calm. The
ideal aimed at should be clearly pictured in
the mind, and then kept constantly before it.
Such a prevailing mood will tend to polarize
all thought, desire, and activity to its
direction. As a traveler may follow a star
through mazes of forest and trackless country,
so will the persistent ideal guide its votary
infallibly through all difficult and complex
situations in life. All that is necessary is
constant practice and absence of agitation.
Constant
practice and absence of excitement or
agitation -- these two rules are always
prescribed. Do you not see that they are the
natural accompaniments of will? If you have
said: "I will", not only in words,
but also in act, and thought, and feeling,
will you not always be free from the
excitement and weakness of wishing?
If
thus you work and practice, and never wish,
and have no attachment to anything but
Brahman, success will soon be yours. Life will
fulfill itself when the obstacles are removed.
In the distant future, do you say? Is it not
sure? And what is sure is just as good as if
it had already happened; so if you will not
have it otherwise, even now success is yours
all the time, not only in the end.
This
article is excerpted from:
 Concentration:
An Approach to Meditation
by Ernest
Wood.
Reprinted with permission of the
publisher, The Theosophical Publishing House, www.theosophical.org
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About The
Author
Ernest Wood is well known as
both a writer and a lecturer on religious and educational matters. His
work is always careful and thoughtful. His convictions as to the
possibilities which we may attain in the near or remote future by
internal self-culture are in accordance with the practical mysticism of
both East and West.
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