Twelve Indicators of Work as Worship

1. What is your work serving?

Ask yourself who are you working for?  Is it serving a degenerating old world, or helping birth a new world?

2. Who are you working for, moment to moment?

Even after you have chosen to work for noble causes, moment to moment - ask yourself - who is it that you are serving? Is it an ego or the Divine? For instance, you may have chosen to join Auroville with an intention of serving the new creation, but you could still be serving a human ego, your vanity, your need for power etc. It is better, then, to be in a corporate with the inner attitude of serving the Divine than to be outwardly committed to serving the Divine and inwardly serving little human demons.

3. Which inner space are you working from?

What are your reasons for working? Often these are mixed. So really look within and ask yourself - what are different parts of my being seeking through work & action? Is there a desire? Is there a need for recognition? Be honest with yourself.

4. Does it embody an aspiration for perfection?

Is your work embodying an inner and outer need for perfection? Are you fine tuning each little detail of your outer work with utmost concentration? Are you allowing it to perfect you within? Example, if you have to make a poster - look at the font, the images, the text - and see if it embodies the highest of harmony and beauty that you are capable of manifesting?

5. What is your inner attitude and environment, moment to moment?

Is your inner environment calm, aspiring, receptive and offering? Or is it that you are having to make a lot of effort to work? In the former, there is a flow & joy. The latter is draining, and often within it is a strong sense of an inner attitude of doership.

6. Are you really seeing work as a field of learning and growth?

If yes, then it will make you grow more youthful and wiser at the same time. When you take it as a learning process, nothing is mundane. Something as simple as writing administrative emails to people can become a field for learning about communication design, user engagement, purification of speech, inner concentration whilst in action etc. No work then is insignificant or mundane.

7. Are you working with a deep awareness and presence?

When one works with a deep awareness and presence, one does not have a need to hop from one thing to the other, but one finds all through going deep within one thing. E.g., food. Through food, if one goes deep enough with awareness, one can develop aesthetic sense, refine all senses, learn how to silently cook, begin to appreciate beauty, experience grace, learn how to setup a table, how to share, how to care. Just one thing, which done with awareness and care can open a universe.
Something as simple as brooming one's room can become a means of a deep purification if done with deep awareness.

8. Are you using all parts of being in your work-manifestations?

Are you only using the mind? Are you also using your body? Your energy and drive? Your aesthetic sense? Your emotional empathy? Your communication power? Make work a place for bringing alive all parts of your being, for a natural integration and harmonisation between different parts of being.

9. What is the vision of your work?

What is the inspiring vision guiding your life? In the work of Dr. Sampadananda Mishra, the inspiring vision is to bring out Sanskrit in the most profound and transformative way. Ask yourself - what is the inspiring vision that is propelling my work and actions? My thoughts and feelings?

10. Are you self-driven?

Tamas in our being makes us passive, unless a push comes from outside we ordinarily do not move into action. Similarly, rajas in out being, makes us act in an agitated and compulsive way. A true self-drive is the one which breaks through the passivity of the tamas and rises above rajas, and is driven by an inspired vision and power to make the true, good & beautiful manifest. Ask yourself are you proactively driving things.

One indicator of this is when you go to a meeting where everyone talks about inspiring ideas and ideals - how much of homework are you proactively willing to take?

11. What do you do when challenges come at work?

Challenges at work are invariably, in every case, a great opportunity for you to process. Something is impelling for you to expand and grow and move to the next orbit. Notice carefully who are you blaming when things are not working out, or when there is an anxiety, fear, helplessness inside of you. Notice carefully - how willing are you to scrap something totally in which you put months or even years of work, when the moment demands... If the challenges and propelling you to reinvent your work, you must be willing to drop everything and start from scratch with the same enthusiasm.

12. What work are you doing? Is it the work you are meant to do? Is it bringing you in your full potential towards your highest aspiration?

In yoga more than the what of work, it is the how of work which is more important. However, as your outer instruments get prepared and you become individualised, you begin to live your purpose and there is no longer a difference between the what and the how. The work that you are doing embodies the purpose of your being here on Earth. This is an advanced stage, which requires sufficient preparation through the first 11 indicators.

As you grow in this stage, you are no longer the one doing work. You are simply an instrument through which the Universal Power and her great work is flowing.