In defence of laziness

Hello brothers,

Exactly what is laziness? Why do people call us good-for-nothing? Let us clear the air.

Laziness is a state of mind, which is precariously hanging between the plasma state and enlightenment. It is that fine difference between my art teacher and Picasso, between my physical trainer in school and Hitler, this is that fine difference between this blog and others in the blogger world. This difference is what brings character, this difference is what makes people or object stands out. Laziness is precisely that difference between ‘close to enlightenment’ and enlightened.

Hence, all seekers, as a pre-condition, must be lazy.

Laziness is also multi-dimensional. It is like Shri Krishna. Laziness shows itself in different form to different people.

For seekers, it is a way to enlightenment. For enlightened people, laziness is a genre of postures. It is that same ladder through which you go up and come down. Once removed, you hang in the air like Lara Croft in the not-so-recent Tomb Raider game, Anniversary (thanks to the technical glitch).

If you are lazily active enough, you can go to the terrace and stare at the stars without even having the need to blink. When your eye muscles get tired, it blinks automatically. You can continue staring at those sparkles till the sun comes up and the resultant heat forces you to find a shelter and practice the same yoga, this time staring at the fast moving blades of the ceiling fan. The art is to watch and not to think. For thinking is activity and enlightened people know the futility of activity.

Of course we are not enlightened, otherwise this blog would not have existed, for we are enduring this pain to write and you as a reader is far from getting enlightenment in this birth, for you are reading it. Bon courage.

But enlightened people, like the other non-active members of this blog, are rumored to have received invitation from our team-leader 20 Box. And despite our cheerleader Anando’s scantily clad dances (which is often followed by 18 hours of blissful snoring), they are still staring at their inboxes and wondering whether to hold the mouse and execute the pain of ‘click’ to accept the invitation. Of course, everybody knows how many muscles are involved in this west-invented clicking exercise (if you still don’t know why don’t you do some google?)

That is too much of a task for sure and our enlightened friends know the futility of it. They are like wise Indians. When a churan-wallah enters the train compartment and offers sample of his latest product for the commuters to test, everybody spread their palms. The small spoonful churan enters their stomach, if not heart, promptly. Even if they don’t like the test, they will spread their palms again for free sample. But they will never buy any packet.

Our enlightened members too watched our cheerleader Anando’s topless chaddhi-flaunting dances and went home … to stare at the invitation link but not to click it, even by accident.

‘Laziness,’ mitron, is a very recent coinage in our country. It could be ancient in the western world. Funny enough, the West has two concepts where everybody should fit in --‘winner’ or ‘looser.’ All the seekers are ‘loosers’ cause they don’t have a car to drive down to the nearest coffee shop. Let’s ignore those nincompoops. All the seekers in our country, as we know already, fall in ‘lazy’ category. Hail laziness. 

In our divine country, laziness was always associated with enlightenment. We used to call it ‘dhyana.’ We have excellent words to describe the sub-sets of this dhyana. Take for example the concept called ‘samadhi’, which, if you translate in English is ‘burial,’ how insensitive.

But our foolish Indian brothers, under the influence of their MNC masters, are increasingly becoming active. This particular development is bothersome. Shall we conclude that there is no scope for introspecting one’s inner self? Shall we conclude that what we see through our already established ‘one of the weakest eyes in animal kingdom’ is only worth investigating and celebrating? Are we not dragging the human civilization down the forgettable path by closing down the R&D of our inner self? How can you develop your inner self if you are not lazy?

How can you have dialogues with your inner self if you are not wrapped up in a shawl turning your back to the sun, warming up in a December winter, sipping a cup of tea, atom by atom, for hours? Those wise active people mean to say that they know more about atoms than us? The atom concept is ours, so is the zero. It should be our conscious endeavor to come close to that zero. It’s a daunting task.

Zero is such a mighty state that only a handful in the entire human race has achieved that. Those who managed to touch that magic number became Buddha. Was that possible if Buddha didn’t sit under that famed banyan tree in modern day Bihar for months? You call it laziness? We call it the mother of all achievement.

Next time when somebody calls you lazy, brother, just smile at him. For hitting him you have to raise your hand, that’s too much of a task.

Remember, non-activity is the ultimate activity, the way to Moksha, the Maha-parinirvaan. Anand, Anand.