Conquest of Mind by Eknath Easwaran

Author:Eknath Easwaran
Language: eng, eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Nilgiri Press
Published: 2012-05-09T16:00:00+00:00

3. Laziness

This third obstacle is easy enough to understand. Just as laziness is our enemy in making money or in gaining prestige or power, it is our enemy in spiritual growth. Hard work is absolutely necessary for excellence in any field, and nothing requires more intense effort than meditation.

This may sound odd, because intense activity is generally motivated toward goals that are just the opposite of spiritual. But over the years I have made a rather surprising observation: the person who is relaxed, easygoing, “laid back,” may not be a good candidate for meditation. Such people simply may not be willing to put forth the effort required to make difficult changes in personality, or have the energy and the stamina to keep going when the going gets rough. To go far in meditation, we need to rouse all the energy we can muster and then channel it all toward one overriding goal.

One of my favorite illustrations of this is the story of James J. Lynn, a prosperous American businessman who had spent immense amounts of time and energy in drilling for oil. Lynn was attracted to an Indian spiritual teacher named Yogananda Paramahamsa, who came to this country early in the twentieth century to found the Self-Realization Fellowship. Yogananda told him, “You have a lot of energy, but you are wasting it just drilling for oil and making money. Why don’t you drill into your own consciousness and really strike it rich?” Lynn did, and the energy and self-discipline that had made him an oil tycoon took him a long, long way in meditation.

But it is not enough to be full of energy. Many people have plenty of energy and don’t know what to do with it or how to focus it, so they scatter themselves over a hundred and one fascinating projects that do no one any good. We need to be able to gather all our capacity for energetic action and then harness it to the goals of spiritual living.

To do this, we have to learn to be detached from the results of our work. Detachment brings confidence and clarity of vision. When obstacles arise, if you are detached you won’t lose your nerve; you know you can turn obstacles into opportunities. And when opposition comes, you can face it squarely and learn from it without stress or agitation. Detachment means withdrawing your personal energy from secondary activities; discrimination is seeing where to focus that energy, so that all your choices take you closer to your goal.

I must say in appreciation of this country that laziness is not a national weakness. Daring and ingenuity are qualities you seem to possess in abundance. If all this energy and enterprise can be harnessed in spiritual living, I have no doubt that our next generation will grow up in a much better world. When it comes to setting social trends, to inventing whole technologies, to setting world records, the people of this country have no equal.

What amazes me even more, however,

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