ASHTAVAKRA GITA - SONG OF SELF - REALISATION

by Chinmayananda

From the standpoint of a sweating labourer, who is working in the midday sun, a doctor in his comfortable air-conditioned operation theatre is an idler! And the Chief Justice of the country, who is working only for five days of the week and perhaps four hours a day, is an escapist getting exorbitant pay for almost no work at all!! From the standpoint of the noisy politician or a busy commercial agent or a restless social worker, a scientist or a philosopher may appear to be an idler! The subtler the field of investigation, the more the intellect and the mind has to function in single pointed concentration and the body then seems to relax with no apparent activity outside. From the gross viewpoint of the thoughtless majority, all such physical relaxations are labelled as idleness. Thus viewed, a mystic meditator, at the seat of his meditation experiencing the infinite tranquillity or the transcendental state, should certainly be considered as the ‘master idler’.