Most traditions separate the inner life from the working day. Sikhi refuses to: remember, work honestly, and share what comes are a single instruction.
Why this is hard
Nanak was a storekeeper before he was anything else. When he came back from the river and began teaching, he did not tell people to leave their work. He told them the work was where it happened.
1 of 3
Remember, continuously.
Because remembering is meant to run underneath everything, the way a hum runs under a room.
You are driving, or answering email, and something in you is elsewhere and steady.
2 of 3
Earn honestly, with your own hands.
Because what you live on is part of what you are.
You turn down the deal that would have worked, and you don't mention it.
3 of 3
Share what comes.
Because a portion is set aside before you decide what you need.
Something leaves your hands before you've counted what's left.
The practice
Pick one of the three for a week — not all three. The tradition holds them as one thing, but a person takes them up one at a time.
Renunciation in the midst of family life — Guru Amar Das's words. Nowhere to go but here.
Sikh teaching. A gurdwara will let you in and feed you, and nobody will ask you anything.