So, What Do You Do for a Living?

What do you do? This is a question we often ask strangers when we want to get to know them better. Sure, we might be interested in what job somebody does, but most likely our question is posed out of a habit reflecting societal expectation. Contemporary society not only places supreme importance on the individual but predominantly views identity through the prism of work and employment. Put differently, what we do to earn a living and how much we earn is valued far more than, say, learning to control one’s impulses. However, mysticism, offering a completely different perspective, contends that our primary job has nothing to do with earning a living; rather, it is to discover what we are.

So, here’s a different kind of conversation about what we do and who we are.

In answer to your question about what I do, well, my job focuses on human discovery.

Well, is that what you do for your living?

Yes, that’s what I do for my living! But, my friend, my understanding of “living” and yours might be different, so let’s start right there. My job has taught me that in everything we see before us is a life force and that life force comes from a single source of energy. Call it Energy, call it God, call it Spirit or Love, but we and everything we see around us originates from that one single energy source. When we feel frustrated by life, when we can’t take it anymore, if we can just be at this calm place of our beginning, then we would see life with a completely different perspective. Can you imagine? Wouldn’t our troubles and worries seem so insignificant?

If that’s true, why is there so much suffering in the world?

Because we ignore one very simple law of nature: as you sow, so you reap. The life force moves from one form to the next, reaping the harvest of the actions performed by the mind. The mind does not stop. It performs new actions in response to situations that have come about because of previous actions. It seeks to be entertained anew, not realizing that it will have to pay – in more ways than one – for its desires to be fulfilled. And so it continues: birth, growth, decay, death, then rebirth and growth, again and again – the law of nature keeps on turning the wheel of life.

But is there no way to get off this cycle?

Yes, there is. As human beings we have the extremely rare opportunity to get off the cycle and return to the beginning. We can choose to take control of our mind and use it to expand our consciousness to such a level that we go back to the start – reunite with God, one could say. With an expanded consciousness we can choose to align our actions with our deepest spiritual nature. Not just with our animal nature; not just with our brilliant mind; but with our loving heart, with that compassionate ocean of pure being from where we came. Human life is our chance to escape the ignorance that has kept us imprisoned till now, simply by our choosing what we do.

It is hard to understand any of this if we approach it just with our brains. All that most of us know is that we are never fully content. That’s why we have to work diligently on the voyage of self-discovery if we want to gain understanding. At the physical level we are programmed not to understand what we are, and at this level life seems to begin with birth and end with death. At the emotional level – stemming from our intelligence or from our religion – we may have some inkling that there is more to life than what we simply see. But if our spiritual heart is awakened to the grand order of life, if we learn to let our soul force lead us rather than body or mind and become superconscious, then we can actually start experiencing this liberating vision of what life really is. This surely has to be the greatest opportunity on offer! If we worked on ourselves to realize our true nature, we would experience complete bliss.

Wow! That sounds amazing!

Wow indeed! Because what I do for a living is not restricted to me but is open to all applicants. Science seeks to know the origin of life through technology, inspiration, and research by the world’s most brilliant minds. Mystics say we can each know what life is by working on our consciousness. Our yearning can be answered. Our hunger for love can be abundantly fulfilled. Mystics say: Don’t lose this opportunity by spending all your life in some other work; keep quality time to work on yourself. One day you are going to die, don’t forget this.

The greatest job opportunity awaits you; it will reward you beyond your wildest dreams. What do you do for your living, my friend?