Changes

=How to Cure Laziness?=

''Q. What are the defects in me that are coming in my way of spiritual as well as material progress?

''A:'' Tamas and sluggishness.

''Q. What am I to do to get rid of these defects of my nature?''

''A:'' Become more and more conscious. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/laziness-tiredness-fatigue-tamas#p13,p14,p15,p16 </ref>

There is a lot to do, a whole lot. But it may go relatively fast. When you observe, you realize that what takes the most time is becoming conscious of what must be changed, having a conscious contact that enables it to change. That's what takes the most time. The change itself... There are recurrences, but it's growing much less intense. It all depends on the amount of unconsciousness and tamas in the being; as it grows less, the experience grows stronger. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/06/july-24-1965#p30</ref>

Sometimes, in certain circumstances, everything seems dull, boring, stupid; this means that you are as boring as the circumstances and it clearly shows that you are not in a state of progress. It is simply a passing wave of boredom, and nothing is more contrary to the purpose of existence. At such a moment you might make an effort and ask yourself, "This boredom shows that I have something to learn, some progress to make in myself, some inertia to conquer, some weakness to overcome.” Boredom is a dullness of the consciousness; and if you seek the cure within yourself, you will see that it immediately dissolves. Most people, when they feel bored, instead of making an effort to rise one step higher in their consciousness, come down one step lower; they come down even lower than they were before and do stupid things, they make themselves vulgar in the hope of amusing themselves. That is why men intoxicate themselves, spoil their health, deaden their brains. If they had risen instead of falling, they would have made use of this opportunity to progress. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/to-the-students-young-and-old#p7</ref>

…but the physical, especially the more material parts of it are still responding mechanically to the old movements which are wearing out indeed under the pressure, but are still strong enough to possess a great part of the consciousness when they come. One feels the power, the compulsory force of this mechanical physical response and gets the impression of their inevitability and the impossibility of ever getting free. This automatic compulsory character of the obstruction is the whole power of the difficulty in the material nature.

The first thing is to reject the idea of helplessness, of impossibility of a successful reaction. The central will must assert itself, not violently in a constant struggle, for that brings reaction, fatigue and inertia, but with a quiet pressure and insistence.

The mind must learn (even the physical external mind) never to say yes to the suggestions and impulsions of the old movement or admit any justification for them however plausible or seemingly “true”. However violently they return and insist, they must feel that they will never get any essential assent or sanction. You have almost reached that point, but it must be made more entire.

There must be something in the vital itself that insists on its true aspiration and refuses even the vital consent or any vital pleasure in the wrong movements. If they come, they must feel their own fallen, ignorant, merely material brute character. This point you seem to be reaching, but it must be absolute.

Lastly the physical, the material itself—to insist on the Light, the true will there also. For that, do not indulge the desires, the wrong impulses, the wrong brute feelings that come. Do not admit the idea that you cannot refuse. Throw them out each time they come, out of the body into the environmental consciousness till they can finally be pushed away from there also. For it is these that now separate you in the physical consciousness from the Mother. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/difficulties-of-the-physical-nature#p1,p2,p3,p4,p5</ref>

All that Sri Aurobindo says here [There is no more benumbing error than to mistake a stage for the goal or to linger too long in a resting place. From Thoughts and Aphorisms]is aimed at fighting against human nature with its inertia, its heaviness, laziness, easy satisfactions, hostility to all effort. How many times in life does one meet people who become pacifists because they are afraid to fight, who long for rest before they have earned it, who are satisfied with a little progress and in their imagination and desires make it into a marvellous realisation so as to justify their stopping half-way.

True repose comes from the widening, the universalisation of the consciousness. Become as vast as the world and you will always be at rest. In the thick of action, in the very midst of the battle, the effort, you will know the repose of infinity and eternity. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/20-march-1957#p9,p10,p11,p12</ref>

When any part of the being becomes prominent like this showing all its defects and limitations—here inertia or incapacity (''apravṛtti''), obscurity or forgetfulness (''aprakāśa''), it is in order to get set right,—it has come up for a first or preliminary transformation. Peace and light in the mind, love and sympathy in the heart, calm and power in the vital, a settled receptivity and response (''prakāśa, pravṛtti'') in the physical are the necessary change. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/the-transformation-of-the-physical#p22</ref>

=Means to Get Rid of Laziness=

The only remedy is to keep quiet, look within oneself honestly to find out what is wrong and set to work courageously to put it right.