“Work is Rest, Work is Play, Work is Worship”

Letter from New Delhi

By Kul Bhushan

When you are at work at your job, you pine for rest. When you have non-stop rest with no job, you pine for work. This is how your mind operates all the time without any respite. So, adopt a new slogan, ‘Work is Rest’ and also its opposite, ‘Rest is Work’. That’s what I did when I started off on my twin careers in 1966 as an educationist and a journalist with much work but no rest. So, the solution was to interchange work and rest. My nameplate had the official titles faced the visitors while my personal slogan faced me to inspire me at all times.

Work was termed as worship in Osho’s city, Rajneeshpuram, Oregon, USA. Osho disciples used to say, “I am worshipping in the garage.” Or, “I am busy worshipping in the kitchen,” And it was worship for him. So, from “Work is Rest’, I moved to ‘Work is Play’ and on to ‘Work is Worship’. Pic – Britannica

The idea originated from the bestselling novel, 1984, by George Orwell, which made a profound impact on me during my journalism course. This famous novel was introduced and taught by Sir Tom Hopkinson, a renowned editor, who had written a book on Orwell. From this novel and Hopkinson’s observations, many new mind-blowing slogans emerged: ‘War is Peace’ and ‘Peace is War’. How come? Simple, when a war is going on, all efforts are for peace but when there is peace, preparations for war or preventing a war are in full swing. Similarly, ‘Love is Hate’ and ‘Hate is Love’. Just think about this as well: when you love someone so much, an element of hate creeps in as well and when you hate a person so much, you end up loving some aspects of his/her personality.

How did this slogan emerge into my life after over half a century? A few weeks ago, a young lady friend rang me for help as she was desperately looking for a job. As a trained journalist, she was sure that I could get her a job as she presumed, I knew some editors. I informed her that I had no contacts with any editor and advised her to switch over to Public Relations where plenty of scope existed. Within a few days, she rang back excitedly informing me that she had secured a job as a PR professional. Great!

“Feel so full,” she messaged a couple of weeks later, “Need a break. Getting no time for even to go for a walk. God help me. I miss the trees, the freedom.” My brief response, “Work is Rest.” And she got it!

Recalling my admiration for Orwell, I dug up the nameplate and reminisced over it when it was a constant reminder to me on my desk. After a decade in the mid-Seventies, I was overwhelmed by Osho’s vision, who has a totally opposite view on work. He says, “Work is Play.”

How come? Plenty of examples of ‘Work is Play’ came to mind. First, the professional sportsmen and sportswomen who make millions, indeed billions, while playing football, golf, tennis, cricket, boxing, car racing, and almost all other sports. Some examples of billionaires from different sports are: Tiger Woods (golf), Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi (football), Magic Johnson (basketball), Michael Schumacher (Formula One Car Racing), Roger Federer (tennis), Floyd Mayweather (boxing), and the list goes on.

Then there are the entertainers who amass millions as singers, musicians, dancers, actors, comedians, and others. Not only millionaires, but pop singers have become billionaires, the latest one being Taylor Swift while others include Rihanna, Paul McCartney, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Jay-Z, Diddy, and others.

When your profession becomes your passion, your work becomes play. It is Leela, the eternal Hindu concept of this world as a playful happening where winning or losing is not in your hands. In real life, if you have an unattainable goal which consumes your total energy and effort, you work without rest. You keep on looking for new openings, new strategies, new solutions to attain your goal. This is an outward effort and when you achieve your goal, you are ecstatic but if you fail, you are depressed. However, Leela implies that you accept success or failure with the same gratitude. Thus, work has become play, a sports match you played with your full energy but the outcome is not in your hands.

But Osho points over the physical horizon when he says, “Work as play, work as enjoyment, work as worship — then it is beautiful; it has a grace to it. Work as an economic activity is ugly. Then you become a part of the marketplace. You are thinking only in terms of what you are going to get out of it. Then you are never here-now. You are always in the result, and the result is in the future. Never be result-oriented — that is the misery of the human mind — be present-oriented. And you are not going to get your innermost being through work. You are going to get it by being present, by being aware.”

If done without monetary gain, work becomes meditation and transforms into worship. When people join any ashram or monastery, they are given some work to maintain the establishment. This is in addition to the time they spend in prayer or meditation. As they work on mundane tasks such as farming, cooking, or cleaning, they gradually go into the no-mind and connect with their inner self. Now their work has become worship. If you work to help the needy or the deprived and contribute your effort, energy, and time, this work becomes prayer. If your heart goes out to a hungry orphan and you provide him with food or you are touched with the loneliness and the pain of a senior citizen and you give him/her company and see the smile coming back, it is prayer for you. When you volunteer for any such task or project without any monetary benefit, you are not merely helping the deprived, you are also helping yourself as your task becomes your prayer.

In fact, work was termed as worship in Osho’s city, Rajneeshpuram, Oregon, USA. Osho disciples used to say, “I am worshipping in the garage.” Or, “I am busy worshipping in the kitchen,” And it was worship for him. So, from “Work is Rest’, I moved to ‘Work is Play’ and on to ‘Work is Worship’.

Anand Kul Bhushan is a writer, journalist, UN media consultant and workshop/meditation leader.

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 7 June 2024