A man passes his life living either awakened or in the state of sleep. Normally people are awake during the daytime and get to sleep at night. Sleep is inevitable because it helps to cease physical and mental fatigue and is indispensable to replenish the energy expensed during daytime endeavors. Waking up in the morning after taking a sound sleep at night makes a man energetic and refreshing. He finds himself full of strength to resume his work. On the other hand, cessation from sleep continuously for 3-4 days will cause so much weariness that the journey of life would seem almost impossible.
Awakening or consciousness is equally essential as sleep because all energetic actions for sustenance and development are carried out in an awakened state. If sleep prevails over other chores of life and awakening is curtailed, this situation can cause major complexities in life. As sound sleep wipes out all our weariness and fills the body with new energy, likewise functions of life go on efficiently by being totally in an awakened state.
Myriads of people remain in a state of inactivity resembling sleep, even in the conscious state of mind. A part of their brain remains conscious, and the rest undergoes a state of dormancy. Such persons living in a partly conscious state become almost incapacitated for doing anything. Their condition concerning circumstances becomes like a mentally retarded or disabled person. This wakeful sluggishness is spread these days like a pandemic disease that has gripped the majority of people.
There is no reason for readers to take it as a surprise or reject that this pandemic has really gripped the majority of the masses. Its patient externally seems physically fit and healthy – capable of performing every normal activity, but the real growth of his life remains suspended due to wakeful sluggishness. His entire reputation and goodwill get ruined. He stays deprived of all significant jobs requiring responsibility.
Wakeful sluggishness has three stages – (1) negligence, (2) laziness, and (3) procrastination. All these three are respectively more harmful and fatal than another. For the sake of argument, these three appear as a normal feature because of these afflictthe majority of people. Even then, their tiny appearance does not bring down their grievousness. Vices, wherever they develop, are bound to create their aftermath.
This is a cognizable fact that any action executed with full attention, integrity, and dedication will yield accurate and flawless results. Any lack of commitment and passion in action will proportionately produce a clumsy effect, and errors will be repeated. As fast a horse runs, so speedily rotated the wheel of the chariot. The wheel is not independent, and its rotation is harnessed by the speed of the horse. Any shortcoming in the horse’s performance would impair the chariot’s speed, resulting in delaying the journey, which would also cause inconvenience to passengers. The same fate is faced by jobs done inadvertently; they appear full of errors and flaws.
Lack of curiosity and disinclination towards any effort is a significant sign of ‘wakeful sluggishness.’ Proper execution of actions done in this mental state is almost impossible, and for this reason, actions done half-heartedly are named as negligence, laziness, or procrastination. This is necessary to take care of two things to succeed in any job, one – “execute every work with greater excellence” and secondly, “protect it from going below decency.” A combination of these two instincts- ‘passion for success’ and ‘fear of failure is called Alertness. This intensified awareness makes plans to succeed and organizes mental faculties to execute any job to yield a successful resultefficiently.
When man fails to perceive the humiliation caused by the disgrace of failure and disparages the splendor and blisses of success, this electrifying strength of awareness fails to come up. This lack of awareness stupefies the nervous system. Pending assignments appear as enormous tasks due to aversion; they do not attract any enthusiasm and are annoyingly executed without due attention. Due to aversion in that work interest does not arise in setting things right. Virtually absence of awareness can be termed as negligence or procrastination, and people of such behavioral patterns are inflicted by two types of flaws, namely (1) they are unconcerned about their commitments and (2) do not understand social and moral responsibilities. Instead of executing necessary obligations, they engage in meaningless activities. For some time, they regret engaging in such insignificant tasks but later again get indulged in the same pattern of behavior, with no punctuality in any daily chores. These persons do not execute any work on predecided time, and this tendency penetrates every aspect of their life. They can justify their duties neither in business nor in service. In business, due to showing a lack of discernment, they lose their customers, and if in service, their employer always scolds them for repeatedly showing indiscipline in discharging duties. As a result, the financial situation of such persons worsens, and gradually indigence starts dominating them.
A procrastinated person is not honest to his promises; he gradually tends to put off doing things due to habitual carelessness. As a result, he needlessly delays executions and gets incredibly nervous when commitment is not complete in time.
Those who are not vigilantly attentive, their daily life disrupted. Their all belongings are scattered everywhere They are reluctant about their appearance also and live an utterly disorganized lifestyle. In the absence of an aide to organize their household, only negative features prevail at every place.
Laziness is more harmful than negligence. After a specific extent, it begins to overpower the body. A man starts escaping from physical efforts. He avoids using physical or mental energy until there is an extreme situation. He prefers his work done by others and immensely dislikes executing any work himself. All his jobs are done after the scheduled time. He is tardy with his work habits. Such sluggishness continues to ruin his life events.
Procrastination is more complex than these two. Intentionally and viciously disparaging beneficial and necessary liabilities of life and letting them deteriorate is termed as procrastination. A negligent or indolent person repents to some extent for his wrongs but a procrastinated person, even knowing the impact of his carelessness, has no excuse for his lazy behavior. He impertinently responds in irrelevant manners, and instead of setting his mistakes right, he begins to censor his critics.
These strong vices of negligence, laziness, procrastination all arise from ‘wakeful sluggishness. ’Apparently, the services do not seem to threaten us. They do not give the impression of harming us, so no attention is paid to them. But it should be remembered that these tiny habits make up our life. Tinyatoms join each other to form a large entity. Mixing a small quantity of yellow with blue color in a specific proportion creates green color, but disproportionate mixing will result in some strange color. An iota of deviation of the gun barrel while aiming the target will produce a difference of meters in reaching its target. Likewise, merits or flaws, how so ever insignificant they appear to us, have the potential of interrupting us from achieving perfection in our life
An article from the writings ofPujya Gurudev published in 1949
Akhand Jyoti Magazine 2021 Nov -Dec