"Career," in fact,
is really just a true external picture of who you are, a
picture that accurately describes you in terms of your functional place in the
surrounding matrix.
For instance
--- perhaps you are a sensitive soul, in love with love,
yearning for kindness and a gentle life. But momentarily unable to find
such and needing money for the rent, perhaps you work
in a gas station.
So what is your
career? Is it, "gas station attendant?"
No. It is, "unhappy
slave ill-fitted to a common task, using his willpower to
fight himself every day because he believes that he must."
Or perhaps you are
a natural-born philosopher and wanderer, one who might find
interesting and agreeable ways to travel unusual paths. But
then, perhaps, your father was a lawyer who accustomed you to
such values, and perhaps you now have a fine office in a
prestigious law firm.
So what is your
career? Is it, "famous and successful lawyer?"
No. It is, "unhappy
slave ill-fitted to a conventional game-pattern, using his
willpower every day to pretend that he is his dad."
Or then again ---
maybe, in your youth, you were wild with sex and knew no
restraint. Maybe somebody got pregnant, and then maybe you
felt guilt and shame, and thus reluctantly entered the bonds
of matrimony. Perhaps you struggled from one job to another to
feed your growing family, and now you are a well-known real
estate salesman.
So what is your
career? Is it, "successful real estate salesman who is a
hardworking family man?"
No. It is, "unhappy
slave who never learned the basic lessons about sex and its
compulsory family dogma, who is still evading the truth while
he gathers money to cover his errors for a lifetime not his
own."
So what is your
career? Some conventional title that you paste over the true
name? Or do you truly see who you are, and do you truly
express that in your life, and then, in time, does that true
expression become your own true, unique career?
The turning-point in this definition of
career is the word,
"true." That in itself automatically eliminates most conventional titles, since almost
all of such titles are based upon
the coercion and error that are a necessary part of
convention.
This leaves us with
stark honesty, looking with intense reality at ourselves,
refusing to comfort ourselves with pleasant illusions.
Under this
scrutiny, a necessary aspect of the truth appears --- the vast majority of mankind
is a slave, never doing what it truly is, always obeying some
master or another, always pretending to be something it is
not, always wasting its time in meaningless labors in exact
proportion as it already wastes its time in a completely
incorrect self-definition.
Man is a slave
to fear, to greed, to sex, to power --- to other people's definitions of what a man should be --- in short, to the
whole motley group of lower things that should be transcended by a man's
integrity. Anyone in this group, while he might be called a
successful businessman or doctor or engineer, in truth is an
unrealized soul in the darkness of his own error. And the true
definition of his career is that of slave.
Once
this is understood, then we can begin to find the true career
as it ought to be. And this is simply the objective, external description of the man, himself,
doing things that his self-respecting intellect creates in accord with his true desires and with his true fairness and respect for the beings all around him, which activities themselves are in perfect attunement with absolute
honesty, integrity, and a worshipful respect for life and its
maker.
This, obviously, is hardly taught in the schools, nor is it generally
passed on from parent to child, since most parents are merely
obeying the conventional family-job game.
This way ---
of utter truth and self-reflective integrity right here and
now --- is normally called a "spiritual" thing, an
unnecessary, idealistic dreaming. But it is no such thing,
rather, it is the vital beginning of any honest
inquiry, and of any honest life.
So what is your career? It is you, all by yourself, all alone, daring to think your own original thoughts, looking and wondering at the magic of your own here-and-now being.
It is you, self-recollected, self-encouraged, realizing that you exist all by yourself as a real being, that you have a right to so exist, and that the kind Universe that gave you life must also be ready to give you your living.
It is you, finally turning off the TV set of social chatter and turning to yourself for every answer --- not to the paltry social ego, but to the simple, quiet, original mind at your center --- the baby in the center, the Buddha in the center, the true self in the center, where it has always been.
This way leads from the collective life to the individual life, wherein you abandon collective, social games while you invent new activities based upon your true, chosen desires. And it is only these new, individual activities that can lead to the fulfillment of your individual goals.
But then again, when people say, "career," they generally mean, "manner of moneygetting."
But this is an error. For there is no money, except for a social game using governments, goods, desires, and printed paper. To pursue the flotsam and jetsam of this ephemeral game is to forever pursue ghosts, apparitions, and unfulfilling illusions. The money comes, the money goes, but it always remains outside yourself, unsatisfying, unreal.
So what is money, really? It is the apparent means, within the surrounding social dream, to obtain your material desires within that dream, at the same time satisfying your concomitant desire to feel good about the transaction by playing fair and giving equal good for good received. It is meant to be an honest buffer between individuals, ensuring that their transactions of goods and services have a reliable, fair, objective measurement.
And what do these money-facilitated fulfillments of material desires provide? They lead to the non-material states of mind that you think you want.
So what does money give you? It gives you desired states of mind. The money and the new state of mind are somehow linked and coincident.
In fact, the whole thing is mental --- thinking in and thinking out. And that is why the physical part --- which is really just a mind intentionally focusing upon the image of the material --- can be skipped over, and thought can jump straight to thought.
So try this: imagine that you already have your desired state of mind, you no longer have any desire for it, and you are living peacefully in that state in a permanent manner.
Then go do something else. When your desire comes up again, then again imagine that it is fulfilled. As often as the desire naturally appears, keep doing this, over and over again.
For the fulfilled desire in your mind will somehow generate the means and the money necessary for its fulfillment. In fact, all the money that you have ever had has come in this way, although you probably did not notice the connection. The direction of life is from idea to reality, from the self's own idea to the corresponding external manifestation.
After you have successfully done this for a few desires, you will see how it practically works, and you will be in a position to redefine your career. You may call yourself whatever you like, but your career will be something new, and far closer to the truth than anything that you did before.
But be careful --- in stepping beyond the conventional material limitations, you are taking responsibility for your own creations, and you are effectively signing on the dotted line that you will accept all and everything that you create, including all that you make for others, whether good or ill.
Just remember to keep it all virtuous and good, for the source of every desirable good thing is the good itself, and you do not want anything that is bad. Then you can play like a happy child, generating abundance and having fun, secure in the feeling that all is well.
In fact, the result of all this will be happiness, virtue, and love, for these are inescapably one with the freedom and wealth that you desire. So you might as well begin entertaining all of these states, all together, right now.
