be as u r

 

Q: Bhagavan said yesterday that while one is engaged in search of God 'within', `outer' work would go on automatically. In the life of Sri Chaitanya it is said that during his lectures to students he was really seeking Krishna within and he forgot all about his body and went on talking of Krishna only. This raises a doubt as to whether work can safely be left to itself. Should one keep part of one's attention on the physical work?

Sri Ramana Maharshi :

The Self is all.

Are you apart from the Self ?

Or can the work go on without the Self ?

The Self is universal so all actions will go on

whether you strain yourself to be engaged in them or not.

The work will go on of itself.

Thus Krishna told Arjuna that he need not trouble to kill the Kauravas because they were already slain by God.

It was not for him to resolve to work and worry himself about it,

but to allow his own nature to carry out the will of the higher power.

Q: But the work may suffer if I do not attend to it.

Sri Ramana Maharshi :

Attending to the Self means attending to the work.

Because you identify yourself with the body,

you think that work is done by you.

But the body and its activities, including that work,

are not apart from the Self.

What does it matter whether you attend to the work or not ?

When you walk from one place to another

you do not attend to the steps you take

and yet you find yourself after a time at your goal.

You see how the business of walking goes on without your attending to it. So also with other kinds of work.

Q: If one holds the Self in remembrance, will one's actions always be right?

Sri Ramana Maharshi :

They ought to be.

However, such a person is not concerned with the right or wrong of actions. His actions are God's and therefore right.

~ From Be as you are book