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<p class="paracenter">FATIGUE AND WORK
</p>
<p class="paracenter"></p>
<p class="para"> Fatigue, it is said, comes from 
overwork. The cure for fatigue is therefore rest, that is, do-nothing. But the 
truth of the matter is that most often fatigue is due not to too much work, but 
rather too little work, in other words, laziness or boredom. In fact, fatigue 
need not come too soon or too easily, provided one knows how to go about his 
work. If you are interested in your work, you can continue for a very long time 
without fatigue; and precisely one of the means of recovering from fatigue is 
not to sit down and slip into lethargy and <i>tamas, </i>but to take up a work 
that rouses your interest. Work done in joy and quiet enthusiasm is tonic: it is 
dynamic rest. A work done without interest, as a sort of duty or task, will 
naturally tire you soon. The remedy therefore against fatigue is to keep the 
interest awake. Now, there is a further mystery. Interest does not depend upon 
the work: any work can be made interesting and interesting to a supreme degree. 
There is no work which is by itself dull, insipid, uninteresting. All depends 
upon the value you yourself put upon it; you can choose to make it as attractive 
as a romance, as significant as a symbol.
</p>
<br><p class="pageno">Page-32</p>
<hr>
<p class="para"> How to do it? How to find 
interest in any thing or all things? Is there not a work that conforms to your 
nature, adapted to your character and capacity? And are there not works that are 
antagonistic to your grain, that lie outside your scope and province?
</p>
<br>
<p class="para"> The question is not about your 
scope and capacity. All depends upon your attitude, the consciousness with which 
you approach a work, especially when you are a sadhak. When a work comes to you 
or when you have to do a work, you must take it up as a thing worth doing. 
Whatever the value given to it normally or you usually put upon it, you should 
not neglect or merely tolerate it, but welcome it and set about it with the 
utmost conscientiousness possible. Even if it were a trifling insignificant 
thing, a menial affair, for example, do not consider it as mean or beneath your 
dignity. Directly you begin to do a thing in the right spirit, you will find it 
becoming miraculously interesting. Try to bring perfection even in that bit of 
insignificance. Do it with a good will, even if it is scrubbing the floor, 
telling yourself: &quot;I must do it as best as I can, that is to say, this too I 
shall do even better than a servant, I shall make the floor look really neat and 
clean and beautiful.&quot; That is the crux of the matter. You should try to bring 
out the best in you and put it into your work. In other words, the
</p>
<br><p class="pageno">Page-33</p>
<hr>
<p class="para">work becomes an instrument of progress. The goodwill, attention, 
concentration, self-forgetfulness and the control over yourself, over your 
organs and nerves —the &quot;smaller&quot; the work the more detailed is the control 
gained—all that are involved in doing a work perfectly, with as much perfection 
as it is possible for you to command, are elements called forth in you and help 
you to make a better man. Indeed a work for which you have no preferential bias, 
to which you are not emotionally attached, even indifferent normally, may be of 
especial help, for you will be able to do it with less nervous disturbance, with 
a large amount of detachment and disinterestedness.
</p>
<br>
<p class="para"> Man usually chooses his work or 
is made to choose a work because of a vital preference, a prejudice or notion 
that it is the kind in which he can shine or succeed. This egoistic vanity or 
opportunism may be necessary or unavoidable in ordinary life; but when one 
wishes to go beyond the ordinary life and aspires for the true life, this 
attachment or personal choice is more an impediment than a help to progress, 
towards finding the way to the true life. The Yogic attitude to work therefore 
is that of absolute detachment, not to have any choice, but to accept and do 
whatever is given to you, whatever comes to you in your normal course of life 
and do it with the utmost perfection possible. It is in that way and that way 
alone that all
</p>
<br><p class="pageno">Page-34</p>
<hr>
<p class="para">work becomes supremely interesting, and all life a miracle of 
delight.
</p>
<br>
<p class="para"> This does not mean, however, that 
there is no work natural to you, for which you have a special aptitude in and 
through which your soul, the Divine, can express itself fully and wholly in a 
special manner. But what is that work? The <i>kartavyam karma</i>—the work that 
demands to be done—deriving from your <i>swa-dharma</i>—your Self-nature? 
Evidently, it is not that of your superficial nature, which the mind chooses, 
the vital prefers and the body finds convenient. To come by your true or soul 
work, you have to pass through a considerable discipline, a rigorous training.
</p>
<br>
<p class="para"> You cannot throw off this work 
and that at random declaring they are not the work fit for you or jump at 
anything that your fancy favours. Indeed, you cannot give up anything, cast out 
anything, simply because it is unpleasant or not sufficiently pleasant. The more 
violently you try to shake off a thing, the more it will try to stick to you. 
Instead of that, you must know how to let a thing drop of itself, quietly, 
automatically and definitively. That is the only way of getting rid of an 
unwanted or an unnecessary thing. Before all, be sincere to yourself: that is to 
say, try to follow the highest light and aspiration in you each moment, and be 
faithful to that and that alone. Never allow yourself to be shaken or moved by 
the likes and
</p>
<br><p class="pageno">Page-35</p>
<hr>
<p class="para">dislikes of your mind or heart or body. Do even what goes 
against the grain of your body or heart or mind, if it is presented to you as 
the thing to be done; do it as calmly, dispassionately and as perfectly as it is 
possible for you to do and leave the rest to your higher destiny. If you belong 
all to your soul, if you are obedient to the Divine alone, then as this 
consciousness and poise grows clearer and steadier in you, you will find things 
that are not consonant with it are dropping off from you quietly and without any 
effort or reaction from you, like autumn leaves from branches that supply the 
sap no more. Your work is changed, your circumstances are changed, your 
relations with things and persons are changed automatically and inevitably in 
accordance with the need and demand of your soul-consciousness.
</p>
<br><p class="pageno">Page-36</p>
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