Going with the flow, and being a lazy loser

The following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Question: How to differentiate between and recognize, whether one trusts in the universe to unfold one’s destiny and goes with the flow, and allows the life to unfold, and be the one who is a loser, who is lazy and does nothing?

Acharya Prashant (AP):

The lazy one does a lot.

The lazy one is lazy and inactive, only externally.

Internally, he is very active.

The ones we call ‘lazy’, are not lazy at all. They may not move their limbs, but their minds are very active. Absolute laziness is a supreme virtue. Sages like Ashtavakra have sung greatly in praise of ‘Divine laziness’.

‘Divine laziness’ is a total stopping of all movement; coming to that point within, where nothing moves at all.

That’s why it is being called ‘lazy’.

You know, there is a song, a Gita. You have heard of the Bhagwad Gita of Krishna, there is another Gita, called ‘the Ajgar Gita’ (The Gita of the Great Python). Do you know Python? It just keeps lying somewhere, doesn’t move. It’s an icon of laziness. So that Gita is known by the Ajgar (the Python). This Gita is devoted to inaction.

There is one mind that appears to be inactive, but is very active within.

There is another mind that appears to inactive, but is totally composed, still, silent within.

Which one do you want?

Listener (L): The silent one.

AP:

That is the art of living — to be totally active outside, and be totally active within.

(Pointing at the ceiling fan) The fan over your head is such a good example. The wings, the blades can move about so freely, only because the axis is totally still. And so the wings can fly. That is ‘laziness’.

In that sense, the Self, the Atman is supremely lazy.

It does not ‘do’ anything; it is just a watcher.

By virtue of it everything happens, but by itself it does nothing.

In it’s presence everything happens, but it is never the…