the art of all work

Today we are reading the beautiful verse from Bhagavad Gita where Krishna is explaining how by engaging in devotional service we can free ourselves from all the good and bad actions of this life and previous lives. Herein Krishna explains that the art of all work is to offer the fruits of action in the service of Lord Krishna.

Prabhupada very nicely translates "the art of all work". A good artist is one who takes basic raw materials and creates something very, very beautiful. A good artist can take some dyes, some minerals from the ground and make it into paint; a good artist can take cotton cloth and make it into canvas, and by combining these elements they make a beautiful, beautiful painting.

Another type of artist will take a piece of crude stone from the mountain and carve it into a beautiful deity or a statue.

Another artist will just take musical notes; Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do; these seven notes and the notes between those notes and with those notes he will make a whole symphony, a beautiful, beautiful song.

Another artist will take a jungle or a field and make it into a beautiful architectural masterpiece of gardens, homes and parks.

So really, an artist is one who takes a very crude, more or less useless raw materials and makes them into something so wonderful, which has a tremendous value. If you go to France there is a museum, the painting of Mona Lisa; the canvas was probably not worth more than a few marks and the paint that was used was not worth more than a couple of marks. But because Leonardo da Vinci took this paint and took this canvas and put them together in such a wonderful way, now that little combination of canvas and paper and paint, that is worth a few marks in materials, is worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

A big piece of stone is not worth so much, but when Michael Angelo carved this big statue, it is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, there is no price, they cannot even buy it because of what he did with it.

So this is the glory of an artist, to take crude materials which are worth practically nothing and to make it something that is very, very priceless.

So Krishna is explaining here what is the art of all work, or in another words, the art of living. In this world people are eating, sleeping, mating, and defending. There are scholars, there are warriors and politicians, there are farmers and there are businessmen and there are workers who are doing their occupation, but ultimately all that they are doing and the materials that they are using are worthless. Whatever a person does in this world in their work, whatever they earn, through the power of time and by the time of death, everything is taken away and all that is left is one big zero.

But a devotee lives in the same world and engages in the same type of activities. But because he knows the art of offering it to Krishna, everything that he does is priceless and eternal; it cannot even be estimated by any wealth in this world.