The whole gist of this
teaching is chat you should work like a master and not as a slave; work
incessantly, but do not do slave’s work. Do you not see how everybody works?
Nobody can be altogether at rest; ninety-nine per cent of mankind work like
slaves, and the result is misery; it is all selfish work. Work through freedom!
Work through love! The word “love” is very difficult to understand; love never
comes until there is freedom. There is no true love possible in the slave. If
you buy a slave and tie him down in chains and make him work for you, he will
work like a drudge, but there will be no love in him. So when we ourselves work
for the things of the world as slaves, there can be no love in us, and our work
is not true work. This is true of work done for relatives and friends, and is
true of work done for our own selves. Selfish work is slave’s work; and here is
a test. Every act of love brings happiness; there is no act of love which does
not bring peace and blessedness as its reaction.
The man who works through
freedom and love cares nothing for results. But the slave wants his whipping;
the servant wants his pay. So with all life; take for instance the public life.
The public speaker wants a little applause or a little hissing and hooting. If
you keep him in a corner without it, you kill him, for he requires it. This is
working through slavery. To expect something in return, under such conditions,
becomes second nature. Next comes the work of the servant, who requires some pay; I give this,
and you give me that. Nothing is easier to say, “I work for work’s sake”, But
nothing is so difficult to attain.
We must work. Ordinary
manking, driven everywhere by false desire, what do they know of work? The man
propelled by his own feelings and his own senses, what does he know about work?
He words, who is not propelled by his own desires, by any selfishness
whatsoever. He works, who has no ulterior motive in view. He works, who has
nothing to gain from work.
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