Asian
Concept of Leisure
The constant rush for progress must
certainly one day reach a point when men will be pretty tired of it all, and
will begin to take stock of his conquests in the material world. I cannot
believe that much better material conditions of life, diseases will be
eliminated, poverty will be reduced and man’s life span will increase and food
will be plenty and man will care to be as busy as he is today.
Culture as I understand, is essentially a
product of leisure. The man who is
wisely idle is the most cultured man.
Those who are wise won’t be busy and those are too busy can’t be
wise. Time is useful because it is not
being used. Leisure in time is like unoccupied floor space in a room.
I could never see the beauty of
skyscrapers. I realize that a skyscraper
can be very imposing and very beautiful to look at, if it had a good frontage
and at least half a mile of unused space around it. The tall buildings are better spaced and can
allow an unobstructed view of them from a distance. We too are so cramped in our life that we cannot
enjoy a free perspective of the beauties of our spiritual life. We lack spiritual frontage.
The
Cult of Idle Life
The enjoyment of leisure costs less than
the enjoyment of luxury. It requires an
artistic temperament which is bent on seeking a perfectly useless afternoon
spent in a perfectly useless manner. The
idle life, so far from being the prerogative of the rich and powerful and
successful. A high-mindedness, is the conception of the dignity of tramp who is
too proud to ask favors, too independent to go to work and too wise to take the
world’s success too preciously. This
comes from a certain sense of detachment towards the drama of life, it comes
from the quality of being able to see through life’s ambitions and follies and
the temptations of fame and wealth. They
value character more than the achievements, their soul more than fame or
wealth. They are the people with great
simplicity of living and a proud contempt for worldly success as the world
understands it.
This
Earth the only Heaven
For if men believe as I do, that this
present earth is the only heaven, they will strive all the more to make heaven
of it. Life passes like a spring dream
without a trace. The moon cannot be
always so round and the flowers cannot for ever look so fair, when we are
watching the full moon in the company of beautiful flowers.
True peace of mind comes from accepting the
worst. When people enjoy themselves,
there is always a subconscious feeling that the joy is not going to last
forever. Even the most gorgeous fair
must sooner or later come to an end. The
feast of life is the feast of Nebuchadnezzar.
The “Animal faith”, means taking life as it
is, the life of the instinct and the life of the senses on the belief that as
we are all animal. We can be truly happy
only when all our normal instincts are satisfied normally. This applies to the enjoyment of life in all
its aspects.
Only in the realistic sense we can feel
about the woman we love. A distinction between her soul and her body is
impossible. For if we love a woman, we
do not have her geometrical precision of features but rather her ways and
gestures in motion, her looks and smiles.
But are a woman’s looks and smiles physical or spiritual. No one can say.
The German philosophers are the most
fructuous of all, they court truth like the ardent lovers but seldom propose to
marry her.
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