Spiritually Effective Work Depends on the Inner Attitude

Whenever we act in the world, whether it is a job, or any kind of activity that involves the expression of energy in the external world, whether physical, vital, mental, etc. we generally do so with a particular ambition, motivation , desire or need. It could be based on physical needs for food, clothing and shelter; it could be based on vital desires or some form of ambition, a seeking for some physical, vital, emotional or mental satisfaction. It could be a form of vanity, or a seeking after fame or glory, wealth or other forms of recognition. We would be hard pressed, if we examine our actions closely, to find any act that is not based in some motive of the ego-personality. Even work that looks like it is charitable or without a personal motive, if we scratch the surface, may have some kind of ulterior motivation or ego-satisfaction mechanism taking place.
For a work to advance the seeker spiritually, it must be free of all these motivations. The most obvious way is to have the psychic being come forward, guding and managing the action, based on aspiration, consecration and devotional surrender. Even here, however, we frequently see a form of ego-presentation getting some satisfaction, so it is not always as simple as we may believe.
In his book The Mother, Sri Aurobindo advises that the effort required of the spiritual seeker is one of ‘aspiration, rejection, surrender’. This is a constant work both in terms of the psychic aspiration leading, but also the inward view that spots the ego-motives and rejects them, leading to a surrender to the higher force.
The Bhagavad Gita explores the idea of work done without desire for the fruits, done for the benefit of all, without self-seeking or self-dealing. Sri Aurobindo explores the meaning of the Gita’s prescription for how to be a selfless worker in the world in his Essays on the Gita. He provides a brief overview here.
Sri Aurobindo observes: “The spiritual effectivity of work… depends on the inner attitude .”
“The only work that spiritually purifies is that which is done without personal motives, without desire for fame or public recognition or worldly greatness, without insistence on one’s own mental motives or vital lusts and demands or physical preferences, without vanity or crude self-assertion or claim for position or prestige… All work done in an egoistic spirit, however good for people in the world of the Ignorance, is of no avail to the seeker of the yoga .”
Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Looking from Within, Chapter 3, Action and Work, pp. 64-65