What to do with Leisure?

 

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What to do with Leisure?

It is a habit of the mind because it has been always living in misery, unhappiness, and always the ‘why?’ has been relevant. So, when clouds disappear for the first time and the sun shines in our life, the old question goes on persisting — ‘Why?’ Learn to accept happiness, learn to enjoy it without any questioning, learn to trust happiness, don’t doubt it, because the very doubt will poison us. Happiness rarely happens. Those moments are very few and far between. When they come, welcome them, open the door, receive them with a full heart, don’t withhold anything. Even a question will become a very, very strong wall between us and our happiness.

Every day is a Sunday. It should be so. Every day is a holiday. It should be so. Because all days belong to Him. Each moment is holy. Once we understand it, we will stop asking questions. Don’t think that any particular day is needed for us to be happy - only a particular mind is required. It has nothing to do with time; everything depends on the attitude, how we look at life. There are people for whom even a Sunday is not a Sunday. There is no light, no sun rising - even on a Sunday. They are clouded in their own darkness, shrouded in their own misery. They carry their hell around them. Even if we force them into heaven, they will go on carrying their hell. They will live in their hell. Nobody can force them out of their hell unless they decide to drop it. It is our decision to be happy or to be unhappy.

There is a story about a mystic who was always happy, nobody had ever seen him unhappy. He gracefully aged and had become very old when someone asked him, “How do you remain so happy, so undisturbed, so blissful every moment? It is impossible, it is unbelievable. What is your secret?” The old man laughed and replied, “Long ago, I found one simple thing – that each morning, when I opened my eyes, I  had to decide on two alternatives for the day – whether to be happy or unhappy. I chose to be happy and that has been my choice daily to this day. It is very simple.”

For people this is difficult to accept. All great truths are simple, it is our mind that is complex and refuses to accept the simplicities of life. We suffer because we go on deciding to suffer, the mind takes us down that path, and we cling to it. We do not learn to let go – it is so simple.

People have lost the ability to be happy, even when they have leisure time choose to be unhappy. Many people go on working and working and working and one day they die…because their work is not creative. When is the work creative? The work is creative when we love it, the work is creative when we feel in tune with it, the work is creative when we enjoy it, the work is creative when we choose it, when it fits with our being and there is a great harmony between us and our work.

There are two types of values in life. One is intrinsic value. we sing a song — it has an intrinsic value; it is the means, and it is the end also. Or we sing a song in the marketplace to earn a little money. That money is not intrinsic to the song, that money is an outside value. And if we are singing our song only for the money, the activity is no longer holy, it is profane. If we are singing our song for the happiness that it brings to us. Maybe as a by-product it brings money also, but that is irrelevant. If it brings, it is good, if it does not bring, that too is good - but our activity has an inner glow to it, it is intrinsically valuable in itself. If we are happy that we could sing, we are happy that we had an opportunity to sing, then every day will become meditative, holy.

If we are doing our meditative practice correctly, this is going to happen to everybody. That’s Swamiji’s whole effort here: to help us enjoy each moment as it comes.