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Work as a Spiritual Practice

By Tom Anderson

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 29Jun2009 Word count: 1453 Viewed: 83 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

There is a line in the book, The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran, which goes like this:

"Work is love made visible."

Honesty time: How often do you feel like the work you do is "love made visible"? If you are like most people, work is just something you do to pay the bills and get you through the week to the weekend. We all have felt that way from time to time, but if we want to have lives of permanent prosperity and abundance, if we want to serve the world while we are creating the life of our dreams, then it would be helpful if we began to view our work in a different way. Maybe it's time to approach work like it's a spiritual practice.

First, what do we mean by a spiritual practice? A spiritual practice is set of systematic rituals or activities that we do that serve to connect us with a deeper relationship with the Divine. By practicing the presence of the Divine, we are reminded of our own Divine nature and are connected with a wider community of other practitioners. In their most effective forms, they are not done by habit or rote, but are performed with an appreciation of their deeper meaning and purpose. Giving thanks or offering a blessing before a meal is an example. If we simply mouth the words, we will receive very little from the practice, but if we see the practice as an acknowledgment that there is a Divine source of all the good that comes into our lives, then the practice will serve to deepen our connection with our Divine source.

Many times, we think of our work life and our spiritual life as being two very different and separate things. Sometimes, we also talk about bringing more of our spiritual life into our work, but what if we began to see our work as our spiritual practice? How might this enrich and deepen not only our work life, but perhaps our spiritual practices as well? We don't have to be a minister, a priest, or a monk to see our work as spiritual practice; we can begin right where we are with the kind of work we are currently engaged in. When our work is more than just "going through the motions," and moves instead toward a spiritual practice, then it does in fact become "love made visible."

There are five ways that we might begin to view our work as a spiritual practice:

1. Work as a path - We can think of our spiritual practices as being a path that leads to ever deeper understandings about our connection to and relationship with our ultimate source. Along the way, there are distractions and side roads, and sometimes we have to take a route other than the one we had planned to get us to our ultimate destination. Work is like that as well. We set our vision for where we want to go with our work and then put our feet in motion. Along the way, through the experiences that we have, the people we encounter, and the trials we endure, we learn more about the path we are on - and sometimes we have to make corrections. Committing to a particular path in work is not unlike committing to a particular spiritual path. When we do so, we are not only deciding what will be ours to do, we are also deciding something about what will not be ours to do. It is this commitment that serves to connect us in a deeper way with who we are and what we have come to be.

2. Work as a process of releasing - As we walk our path of spiritual growth and understanding, one of the things that we must learn to do is to release. If we are to evolve spiritually, it is helpful to develop a regular process of releasing those things that are no longer serving us - old ideas and beliefs, relationships, and perhaps even our predetermined ideas about our spiritual path itself. It's a lot like weeding out a garden so the plants and flowers that we want to see flourish have room to spread and grow. Likewise, our path of work requires the same thing from us. We are constantly being called to release ideas, ways of working, and relationships that are no longer meant to be a part of the path ahead of us. For instance, how many of us are still typing documents on a manual typewriter - and using carbon paper when we went multiple copies? That's a very simple example, but we can all think of other times where we had to rethink how we would approach our work, or even the kind of work we were supposed to be doing. Those companies that have survived and thrived for many years have done so because their leaders understood the necessity of constantly releasing the old so that the new could take root and grow. Our own individual path of work can be seen the same way.

3. Work as connection - Spiritual practices connect us with each other as well as our idea of the Divine. Likewise, work can connect us, not only with our fellow coworkers, but also with our customers and clients, suppliers and vendors - even with those we call our competitors. While a shared understanding about the nature of the Divine connects us with others on a similar spiritual path, a shared vision about the nature of our work connects us even more deeply with the people we interact with in our work. This connection can be made deeper still when we come to see the process of work as being an activity of giving and receiving. By paying attention to the reciprocity that is always present in the world of work we can become even more conscious of the reciprocal nature of the universe and the abundance that is always present when we chose to give as well as receive.

4. Work as a form of service - Service is a spiritual practice. Think of Jesus healing the lame, Mother Theresa serving the poorest of the poor, or countless others in our communities who volunteer in so many ways to help others. When we serve one another, we connect in a much deeper way with the Divine nature of each other. By serving one another, we are essentially saying that our lives are about something that is bigger than just satisfying our own personal wants and needs. Our work becomes a spiritual practice when it also becomes about something bigger. Sometimes the nature of the work we do can make it hard to see the good that we are doing for others. It is easy for a minister or social worker to see how they are serving others with and through their work, but what about someone who works in a factory, or cleans hotel rooms? But, think about the times you have encountered someone with a job like that who really seemed to shine and to truly enjoy their work. I am willing to bet that person had found a way to connect their work with a sense of service to others. I actually believe that the idea of service as a spiritual practice in our work is even more effective for us when the connection to others is not so obvious and must be searched for. Begin a practice of making your work a form of service to others and your work will become for you a spiritual practice as well.

5. Mastery - Our spiritual practices engender in us a desire for mastery. When we begin to see our work as craft, we will be inspired toward mastery of our work as well. Mastery implies that we have a teacher or teachers and that we have given ourselves to the task of study and practice necessary to develop our skills to a high level of understanding and proficiency. We commit ourselves to mastering our particular kind of work the way a monk commits himself to mastering his daily rituals of prayer. By seeking mastery in our work, we are not making work our master, but are instead constantly refining the way we walk our path - which brings us back around full circle to the process of release, connection, and service.

If we are to receive deep satisfaction from our work, if our work is to make a lasting impact in the world, and if we are to achieve permanent prosperity, then we must begin to make our work a spiritual practice. Then we can truly say that our work is "love made visible."

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