It is fortunate to begin a spiritual search while in college. Despite the demands of classes and friends, and the perpetual shortage of funds, it is a relatively flexible environment for a seeker. In addition, there is the vitality of youth.
The time eventually arrives to graduate into the world of work and a choice looms in the mind of the potential seeker – whether to pursue a career or the search for self-definition. Often, this manifests as a desire to find a career in which the quest will “fit.” For example, becoming a teacher, so you have summer vacations for reading, meditating, and travelling. That career provides financial security and respectability, yet hopefully enough flexibility for your “other interests.”
However, will you be a teacher who is a seeker, or a seeker who happens to be a teacher?
Another inspiration that arises is the plan to make a fortune in a hurry, retire young, then spend the rest of your life seeking. This is the gamble for the big kill. You contemplate starting your own business, or inventing the “next big thing.” Most who go for the gamble wind up chained by their desire, with their relief, like that of Tantalus, just out of reach. Or they find that by the time they achieve their fortune, their best and brightest years are spent.
A few take the opposite approach and reject the need for money, believing that God will provide their financial needs, or dreaming they are holy men on the streets of India. While some are simply lazy, others are well intentioned, but wind up slaves to their poverty as surely as others are slaves to their salaries.
The wise man ignores his cries for security and uses work to further his quest. He recognizes the value of money as a tool: money buys his plane ticket to an ashram, a month in isolation, books, or a warm, quiet place to meditate. Money pays the unavoidable bills and keeps the collection agents from calling.
Besides money, work provides another valuable service in your search. Work is a potential means of self-exploration and force to shape you into a more astute seeker. Often, there are psychological adjustments that will speed your progress toward self-definition (see the article To Change or Not to Change). Well-chosen work accelerates this change.
For example, if you are shy, don’t get a job in front of a computer. Find work that forces you to interact with others. If you are easily distracted, find a job working with numbers, or where precision counts. To “become as a little child,” work with children. To contemplate death, work with the elderly or in hospice.
Let your jobs evolve as your inner search evolves. Too long spent at one job will find you in a comfortable, uncomfortable rut. To keep looking within, you must continually prod the mind and a new job is an effective prod.
What if I take the wrong job? is a worrisome thought. The simple solution is to quit. Do not be afraid to exit your mistakes. Do not be afraid to walk a different path. Others have done so and found success beyond price.
Most are indoctrinated into the idea of a career – an employment path that will bring you wealth, security, and fulfillment. I propose that the spiritual search is the most valid career and a job is used to further that path. You know nothing about your real wants, needs, and desires until you discover who you are. The wealth, security, and fulfillment of self- knowledge are the ultimate career. Once found, all else will unfold.