Right Attitudes for Success-Swami Chinmayananda

You and I are alive. Therefore, we cannot but be active. As long as we are living, we have to act, for life pulsating through the body becomes activity in the outer world. Since actions are flowing out of every living person until he or she dies, it is important to understand how they can be organized, altered, or disciplined in order that these actions necessarily and inevitably coming out of him bring about happiness in the community and a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction to the individual. This is called the "art of action".

Action is inevitable, because it is the signature of life. Life expresses itself in action, as death does in inaction. But actions may vary from man to man. A farmer working in the fields perspires and sweats with exertion. A poet in the midst of his greatest creation doesn’t seem to be working at all from the farmer’s point of view. From the standpoint of a poet, a scientist is wasting public money. From the scientist’s standpoint, an ordinary thinker is wasting his time. From all their points of view, Buddha sitting under a tree is an idler, an unnecessary leech upon society. Each one may point out to the other and say that he is an idler, but each one knows how vigorously he himself is working.

© “Tapovan Prasad” (May 2002) published by Chinmaya Mission, # 2, 13th Avenue, Harrington Road, Chetput, Chennai 600 031. Reprinted with permission

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