Prescribed duties

17 May Prescribed duties

Q. As a householder we do not have to give up our job, but change our consciousness in doing it. One way of doing it is to donate a portion of the income coming from the job for Lord Shri Krishna’s service and use the rest to maintain and raise the family in Krishna consciousness. 

Now I have a desire to do the job also because it gives me job satisfaction, not just fruits in the form of money. If the higher level motivation of surrender of fruits of action irrespective of the job that I do is taken care of, do lower level motivations such as job satisfaction matter? I don’t have the realization of love for Krishna to motivate me to do a job that’s less satisfying. I do it as a responsibility towards my family. Could you please throw some light on this matter? 

From the teachings of Lord Krishna in Bhagavad-gita, we certainly learn the importance of doing one’s duty with detachment from the results. This is called Niskama-karma-yoga. Further, Krishna also teaches how our duty is to be determined in the first place: prescribed duty is based on one’s guna and karma i.e. the qualities one has acquired from the modes of material nature and one’s tendency towards a particular work.

We could say that engagement in work born of one’s own nature yields one the most ‘job-satisfaction.’ For example, someone with brahminical inclination would be more satisfied in the position of a teacher rather than in a vaisya occupation, and conversely a businessman by nature would feel restless in the position of a priest. Arjuna, for instance, was to fight as a ksatriya because that was his natural propensity. When he considered giving up fighting, and earn his livelihood by begging and practice of non-violence, the Lord rebuked him and instructed him: “It is better to engage imperfectly in one’s own occupation than perfectly in another’s.’ (Bg 18.47) “To follow another’s path is dangerous.’ (Bg 3.35). Thus job-satisfaction, or more precisely consideration of one’s natural propensity towards work, is not secondary or unimportant in choosing one’s occupational duty; rather it is a primary deciding factor, and generally it is prescribed by one’s spiritual superiors who knows the nature of the student.

The whole instituition of varnashrama dharma is to dovetail our natural propensities in the service of the Lord and gradually increase our attachment to Him and proportionately diminish the spirit of “I am the proprietor, and I am the enjoyer.” This includes not only the gradual detachment from the fruits of work but also the sense of enjoyment independent of Krishna. In the higher stages of niskama-karma-yoga, one offers not just the fruits/results of one’s work, but also the work itself is dedicated to Krishna’s pleasure. Such a person is not interested in his own satisfaction but will do any work that serves Krishna’s interest best. As you have honestly indicated, we may not be at that stage yet, and therefore we should engage according to our nature following the codes of varnashrama dharma. By this practice of karma-yoga in combination with our daily devotional practices of hearing, chanting, associating with devotees and so on, we will be raised to the stage of real attachment to Krishna.

Finally, please read carefully the purport of Brahma Samhita Text 61, from which the following quote is taken: “Brahma cherishes the desire for creation in his heart. If that creative desire is practiced by conjoining the same with the meditation of obeying therein the command of the Supreme Lord, then it will be a subsidiary spiritual function (gauna-dharma) being helpful for the growth of the disposition for the service of the Divinity by reason of its characteristic of seeking the protection of Godhead.”