In contrast, repetitive daily work—such as my teaching responsibilities and household chores—often leaves me feeling empty, resistant, and drained. I sincerely wish to live the ideal that “all life is Yoga,” but I find it difficult to bring the same joy and aspiration into ordinary work. How can I understand this inner conflict?
Is it a stage of the yoga, a limitation of my nature that needs transformation, or an indication that my soul is seeking a different form of work? How can I bring the same aspiration and consciousness into everyday duties so that all life truly becomes Yoga?
It is a beautiful sign of being taken up by Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. The soul and mind has opened. It is just a question of time that the rest of nature will open as well. The loss of interest in the work one was engaged in is a stage through which everyone passes through initially and often for a long time. As the internal shift takes place, there is a shift in our motivations, aims, interests. Our true temperament, swabhava and swadharma begins to emerge. The result is an inevitable loss of interest even in our so-called highest duties. It is stage of detoxification through which one passes before the true work and the true Divine impulsion, and not the earlier push by the desires and ego, begins to emerge. The life we lead before turning to the Divine is a life of ignorance where our choices were dictated by selfish interests. All life is yoga does not mean continuing and prolonging the old life with a little bit of coloring.
During this intermediate stage, one has to still continue whatever one has been doing but with a new attitude, an attitude of treating it as no more one’s own but the Divine’s Work. One turns the work into an offering and a worship. Later, you will feel the true inspiration, the deeper urge emerge, a work that would be the true expression of your soul. Finally, even this goes away and one becomes only a channel and instrument for the pouring in of the Divine Force and fulfils the Divine Will in whatsoever way the Divine chooses.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
