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.

the world is a battlefield

The Bhagavad Gita didn’t teach Arjuna to be a lazy mendicant. Rather, Arjuna was the most determined and effective fighter in the whole battlefield. Why? Because he had the highest purpose in which he fought. He was fighting for Krishna; he was not fighting for his own vices. When you graduate from college, you will find out very quickly (or you may have already found out) that this world is a battlefield. This is fact. No matter what field of activity you take, it is a battlefield. Even if you take the occupation of a simple sadhu like myself, it is a constant battle, what to speak if you go into the field of business where the competition is so fierce at every step there are people are out there to cut each others' throats for money. 

And what to speak if you are just trying to be ethical and moral! The propaganda of de-morality is just bombarding you, bombarding your family, bombarding your children from all sides. This world is a battlefield. And Bhagavad Gita does not teach us how to run from the problems, does not teach us how to run from crisis, it teaches us how to stand up and fight in divine consciousness with all power and strength of God behind us, with the purest motivation, and in a state of real peace, in the light of all opposition. 

If you can learn that type of self-management, you will be perfectly successful in life, materially, spiritually.

the universal scripture

Someone may say that this self-realization business is for the yogis and sadhus. What does it have to do with a practical person of this world with a family and a job? 

The Bhagavad Gita is a scripture specifically meant for the people who live within this world. The Bhagavad Gita is not a sectarian scripture. It is a universal scripture, which explains how to live in an artful and beautiful manner, every moment of our life.

Arjuna was the recipient of the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita. He was a warrior. He was a politician. He had to manage the affairs of the state, and he had to defend the laws of the state. This is very, very practical service. He was by no means a sadhu or a sannyasi (renunciate). 

And when then he was faced with a very difficult crisis - talk about crisis management. He was standing between two armies and he realized that his friends, well-wishers, and relatives were on both sides. He didn’t want to fight; he wanted to run from the problem. He told Krishna, “I’m not going to fight, I’m going to run away to be a yogi or a sadhu or a sannyasi, but Krishna, I’m not going to stay here and fight.” 

Some people say that people like me [a sannyasi] are the people who have escaped from the world, that I couldn’t face the problems of the world, that I couldn’t face practical life so I ran off to become a sadhu. Arjuna wanted to become like that. The whole reason for scripture of the Bhagavad Gita was to convince Arjuna that he had no right to run away from the problems that he was facing in his occupation. Krishna said, "You must face your problems and you must solve them. You must fight because you are a fighter. You must work; work hard. 

'But you must do it in divine consciousness, in consciousness of self realization."