work

19 SEPTEMBER 1983
Evening
For the sake of Lord Rama, the group that came here yesterday worked wholeheartedly today. Work is Mahayoga, Supreme Yoga. To go astray from the path of Karma is to create trouble for ourselves. Action is the source of all joy. Go on working. Go ahead, making progress. Work until your last breath.
The world is transitory. You will find stability only on the path of Karma Yoga. Only action can take a man to God and give him liberation. The law of Karma is so deep that no words are great enough to describe it. The day Karma stops on this earth will be the day of its dissolution (pralaya).
Brave ones, all of you, continue to work! Through Karma alone will you be able to change the world. It is the only way.
Today the world is playing with fire. We have to be ready to face fire, water and great storms and not be shaken. We have to go beyond the hope of life and the fear of death. Whatever happens, we must go ahead. Then only can we benefit the world. We have to bring the path of Karma into the light. Now the world is in deep darkness. The Revolution spreading in this world can be controlled by Karma alone.
(Babaji then whispered two mantras to Shastriji who repeated them: "Yadatma Dhrishchayaha: He who has control over himself, who is of determined mind, will succeed in life." "Utishchata Jagrata Prapta Varan Nibhoda Yata: Arise! Awake! Go and seek the wise and learn from them.")
You have come here from the four corners of the world. Today you should take a vow to work hard always and to spread the message of Karma wherever you go.
JAI MAHAMAYA KI JAI!
23 SEPTEMBER 1983

Babaji

Why is programming fun?

First is the sheer joy of making things. As the child delights in his mud pie, so the adult enjoys building things, especially things of his own design. I think this delight must be an image of God's delight in making things, a delight shown in the distinctness and newness of each leaf and each snowflake.

Second is the pleasure of making things that are useful to other people. Deep within, we want others to use our work and to find it helpful. In this respect the programming system is not essentially different from the child's first clay pencil holder "for Daddy's office."

Third is the fascination of fashioning complex puzzle-like objects of interlocking moving parts and watching them work in subtle cycles, playing out the consequences of principles built in from the beginning. The programmed computer has all the fascination of the pinball machine or the jukebox mechanism, carried to the ultimate.

Fourth is the joy of always learning, which springs from the nonrepeating nature of the task. In one way or another the problem is ever new, and its solver learns something: sometimes practical, sometimes theoretical, and sometimes both.

Finally, there is the delight of working in such a tractable medium. The programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought-stuff. He builds his castles in the air, from air, creating by exertion of the imagination. Few media of creation are so flexible, so easy to polish and rework, so readily capable of realizing grand conceptual structures. (...)


Yet the program construct, unlike the poet's words, is real in the sense that it moves and works, producing visible outputs separately from the construct itself. It prints results, draws pictures, produces sounds, moves arms. The magic of myth and legend has come true in our time. One types the correct incantation on a keyboard, and a display screen comes to life, showing things that never were nor could be.

Programming then is fun because it gratifies creative longings built deep within us and delights sensibilities we have in common with all men.

The Mythical Man Month - Fred Brooks