Teachings of Adi Sankara

Teachings of Adi Sankara:-

What did the World’s acclaimed and renowned Teacher Sri.Adi Sankaracharya said about “Work”

The secret of action is to get the dexterity by which works naturally causing bondage cease to have that effect. That dexterity consists in being even minded in pain and pleasure and such opposites.

It is not proper for one who has not known the self to give up the duties enjoined on him. It will be wrong if such a person were to think that he should not do his duty on the plea that work leads to bondage. For the reason that action sets the wheel of the world in motion, the person on whom a duty is enjoined should perform it. Before attaining the competence to the knowledge of the self, a man should engage in the path of action (karma yoga), which is his proper sphere, as that will lead him to attain to self-knowledge.

Path of action is the means of reaching the true knowledge of self and consists in the performance of unselfish work accompanied by the conquest of the dualities of the sensations as such heat and cold and pleasure and pain, and done in the spirit of worship of God. It is the Yoga of concentration and equality while doing work. Ordinarily, work brings about bondage in the form of merit and demerit , virtue and vice. By God's grace work ceases to bind when it is done as worship of God. Karma Yoga, therefore, is the means to liberation.

Until a man has attained the competence to follow the yoga of knowledge he should engage himself in work, as he is till then qualified only to follow the path of action.

JK