What is karma? · Lesson 4 of 5
Work like a master, not a slave
Swami Vivekananda had a strong way of saying it: work like a master, not like a slave.
He meant this. Most people work only for what they'll get: money, praise, grades, being liked. When they don't get it, they are miserable. They are "slaves" to the result.
A "master" still works hard, maybe even harder. But they work because the work is worth doing, and because they choose to. They aren't controlled by whether someone claps.
He also says that every act of love brings peace back to the person who does it. Work done with love doesn't drain you the same way work done for a reward does.
Imagine two people volunteering at a temple kitchen. One keeps checking whether anyone noticed how hard they worked. The other just enjoys feeding people. Same job, but only one of them goes home happy.
You can try this with any job: chores, homework or your career. Do it well, do it with care, and let go of needing someone to notice.
The whole gist of this teaching is that 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. Real existence, real knowledge, and real love are eternally connected with one another, the three in one: where one of them is, the others also must be; they are the three aspects of the One without a second — the Existence - Knowledge - Bliss.
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