A lesson in Karma Yoga

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THE ART OF BUILDING SHRINES:

A LESSON IN KARMA YOGA

 

This article was written by Swami Atmajnanananda, the resident swami

of the Vedanta Society of Greater Washington, D.C. It has been

published in Living Wisdom: Vedanta in the West.

 

 

About ten years ago I had the privilege of making a shrine for the

Vivekananda House in South Pasadena where Swami Vivekananda lived for

several weeks in 1900. I had recently helped restore the house to its

original condition, just as it might have been when Swamiji actually

lived there, and the whole time I was working on the house, I felt

greatly inspired just knowing that such a noble and heroic soul had

lived there. Later, as I was making the shrine which was to be

installed in the room which served as Swamiji's bedroom, my mind was

filled with thoughts of him and his stay in California. I could

picture him sitting at the breakfast table in the morning, smoking his

pipe in the garden, or absorbed in deep meditation in his room. It was

a very special period for me and one in which my mind naturally tended

toward higher thoughts while I worked.

 

Since I carry out various types of maintenance chores at the monastery

where I live, I was often given jobs not nearly as inspiring to work

on. As it turned out, my very next assignment was a stand for an old

pump motor in one of our storage sheds. I had completed the basic

structure and was working on the final finish of the stand. Very

likely I was paying more attention than necessary to the aesthetics of

the job and may have gone a little overboard in sanding and finishing

a structure which would very soon be splattered with grease and

gasoline. Having just completed the shrine project, however, I was

blissfully unmindful of my unwarranted attention to detail and beauty.

 

One of the brothers happened to see me putting the final touches on

the stand and jokingly asked, "Are you making another shrine?" His

words, though casually uttered, caught me totally off guard. Something

clicked inside my head, and I immediately realized that, without my

knowledge, the same attention to detail, the same concentration of

mind, and the same devotional feelings that had been my constant

companions throughout the shrine project had managed to infiltrate the

seemingly trivial job I was working on. So, despite the fact that the

stand I was making was to bear not a picture of Swami Vivekananda but

rather an old pump motor, I at once saw that I had been building

another shrine, though unconsciously, and replied (incredulous that he

had to ask), "Yes, as a matter of fact, that's exactly what I'm

doing!" And from that moment on, I have tried to maintain the same

attitude in all my work, to feel that whatever I was making was a

shrine to the Lord.

 

The experience that I had that day was a particularly valuable one for

me. I began to understand the great importance of attitude in

spiritual life. I saw that with the help of a healthy imagination and

a smattering of devotion, all action can be converted into acts of

worship. All activities can be spiritualized until the line of

demarcation between sacred and secular, spiritual practice and worldly

duties, begins to gradually melt away. We can wash the dishes with the

same care that we take when polishing the sacred vessels used in

worship; we can spread the tablecloth and set the table for the

evening meal with the same reverence that we feel when arranging the

altar cloth in the shrine room; we can serve our family and friends

with the same devotion that we would feel when serving the Lord.

 

The critical element is our attitude. We need not sand and stain the

stand for a motor with the same zeal that we would the shrine, but we

should try to maintain the same state of mind and the feeling that we

are performing our work as an offering to God.

 

We find this same idea beautifully expressed in the Bhagavad Gita:

"Whatever you do, whatever you eat, whatever you offer, whatever you

give away, whatever austerities you perform, do all of them as an

offering unto Me." The spiritual aspirant who adopts this attitude is

limited only by his imagination with regard to spiritualizing his

everyday activities. There is a wonderful song by the great mystic

poet of Bengal, Ramprasad, which reveals the heights to which the

devotee can aspire along this path:

 

O my mind, worship Mother Kali in any way you like;

Repeat her name both day and night.

When you lie down for rest, feel you are bowing at her feet;

While you sleep, feel you are meditating on her;

And when you eat, think you are making oblations to Mother.

Whatever sounds you hear, know them all to be Mother's mantra;

For Kali is the embodiment of all the letters of the alphabet.

Ramprasad says with joy: "Mother dwells in all things;

When I walk about town, I am circumambulating Mother herself.

 

What do we gain by adopting such an attitude? The fruits of this

practice are many and enduring. By keeping our minds fixed on our

spiritual ideal at all times, we become forgetful of self. Our actions

become purged of selfish motive, and the heart becomes purified. We no

longer feel that strong sense of attachment to work which only leads

to greater misery and bondage.

 

When we look upon action as an offering, we can freely give it up.

Since our work takes on a new importance for us, we naturally perform

our duties with greater attention and efficiency. Knowing that we have

done the best job we can, we are not disturbed by the praise or blame

of the world, especially since our motive for action is no longer a

self-centered one but a God-centered one.

 

We also find that much of the drudgery which normally accompanies work

begins to disappear the more we think of it as worship, until even the

most menial task becomes a source of joy. At that point we no longer

look upon any activity as "secular" or "worldly." All our actions

become opportunities for spiritual growth because the mind remains

fixed on God or the spiritual ideal throughout. By cultivating the

attitude that all action is an offering to the Divine, we can

ultimately make our whole lives an offering to God. By mastering this

art of "building shrines" we can, in the course of time, make that

final offering of the lower self into the higher Self, the soul into

God, and so attain the final aim of human life.