JOIN USI used to go wild when I was stuck in traffic. Now I remain calm, using this “wasted” time to work on myself. I go deeply within and check my spiritual pulse.
Am I progressing? Have I transformed myself by giving up old habits? Am I a better person? Am I serving the sick and the suffering? Do I love more and more people, more and more intensely as my Guru instructed? Taking a personal inventory is important.
According to our Baba, “Be warned of falling into the easy path of moving with the current. Heroism demands that you should promote your individuality and follow the ideals you deem best. Do not imitate others through sheer laziness of thought.”
When we follow the crowd, reading the best sellers, eating at the best restaurants, we often go against our own inner guidance. The idea of relaxation as a necessity is also curious to me. Money spent on unnecessary shoes, for instance, during the course of a year could be invested in feeding one poor family a month.
Puttaparthi Sai said, “If you plead that you have no time to spare for repeating the Lord’s name and meditation, I will say that it is but laziness that makes you argue so. How can any lower task claim the time that is legitimately the right of the one task for which man is born? Rise everyday as if you are rising from death.
Say, ‘Thus am I born. Make me speak soft sweet words, behave coolly and comfortingly towards all, sow deeds that shower happiness on all, form ideas which are beneficial to all.”
A life devoted to humanity takes courage and daring—going against the mundane grain of existence.
Sai confirmed, “Everyone must endeavor to be self-reliant and self-sufficient so far as food and clothing are concerned…. We encourage laziness by making it the sign of affluence; we do not condemn it, wherever found.”
Sitting in traffic, I am able to listen to myself and to see that there are times when I complain about my busy schedule, instead of celebrating the fact that I have work!
“Laziness is the bane of modern civilization; people want rest, they complain of overwork; they talk of being tired. I am showing you by my example how you must fill every moment with useful beneficial activity,” Sai had said.
“You talk among yourselves, O, Swami is having his rest hour; Swami is sleeping. But I never craved for a minute’s rest. Shall I tell you at what time I feel restful, relieved, content? When I know that you are all earning supreme bliss through detachment and spiritual discipline, not until then.”
“Laziness produces rust, which in time turns man into dust.”