Work too is prayer

Work too is prayer: Once a sage was camping in the house of one of his disciples. Every day after returning from work in the evening the person used to retire for his daily prayers, which would take almost two hours. To ensure that the sage did  not take it as an act of discourtesy, he went to him and said  politely, "Mahatma, right since morning l remain busy in business dealings and other worldly affairs, but in the evening l ensure that l spend at least two hours with God and I feel happy in doing so. For me, all these worldly affairs are useless in the sense that these take away my peace of mind, while this prayer in the evening recharges me no end. Left to me, I would like to engage in prayer all through the day. The sage smiled and said, tomorrow I want you to accompany me to some place. But, for some reason, next day at the last moment the sage said, “I’m not in a mood to go out. Let’s stay at home.” The person didn’t say anything and kept waiting for the sage’s next instructions. In the evening the sage was kind to remind him that it was his prayer time and he could proceed for that.  When he returned after his routine prayers, the sage said, “Now you must be feeling quite rejuvenated”. But the man said, “Really, I don’t know why today I didn’t enjoy my prayer session”. The sage just smiled and said, “Today you didn’t enjoy your prayer because you remained away from your work which, according to you, is all useless but in my opinion is as important as your daily prayer: The truth is that the performance of one’s duties to family, society and nation is as important as the act of prayer. One has to do a balancing act; and  only that keeps one happy .