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Jiddu Krishnamurti Talk on Laziness

Questioner: Why do we like to be lazy?
Jiddu Krishnamurti: What is wrong with laziness? What is wrong with just sitting still and listening to a distant sound come nearer and nearer? Or lying in bed of a morning and watching the birds in a nearby tree, or a single leaf dancing in the breeze when all the other leaves are very still? What is wrong with that? We condemn laziness because we think it is wrong to be lazy; so let us find out what we mean by laziness. If you are feeling well and yet stay in bed after a certain hour, some people may call you lazy. If you don't want to play or study because you lack energy, or for other health reasons, that again may be called laziness by somebody. But what really is laziness?

When the mind is unaware of its reactions, of its own subtle movement, such a mind is lazy, ignorant. If you can't pass examinations, if you haven't read many books and have very little information, that is not ignorance. Real ignorance is having no knowledge of yourself, no perception of how your mind works, of what your motives, your responses are. Similarly, there is laziness when the mind is asleep. They are drugged by knowledge, but the Scriptures, by what Shankara or somebody else had said.

They follow a philosophy, practice a discipline, so their minds - which should be rich, full, overflowing like the river - are made narrow, dull, weary. Such a mind is lazy. And a mind that is ambitious, that pursues a result, is not active in the true sense of the word; though it may be superficially active, pushing, working all day to get what it wants, underneath it is heavy with despair, with frustration.

So one must be very watchful to find out if one is really lazy. Don't just accept it if people tell you that you are lazy. Find out for yourself what laziness is. The man who merely accepts, rejects, or imitates, the man who, being afraid, digs a little rut for himself - such a man is lazy and therefore his mind deteriorates, goes to pieces. But a man who is watchful is not lazy, even though he may often sit very quietly and observe the trees, the birds, the people, the stars and the silent river.

Source: from book "Think on These Things" by Jiddu Krishnamurti