Laziness – The Active Enemy

There was a camel in the Satya Yuga (In the Age of Truth) and he was able to
remember his past life. This camel performed very severe austerities with hard
vows in the forest. At the end of his austerities Lord Brahma became very much
satisfied and told him to ask the desired boon. The camel said, “O Lord, I wish
that by your blessings my neck should become very lengthy so that whenever I
go for graze I should be able to grab hold of food which is even at the end of
one hundred Yojanas.” Brahma accepted his request and gave him this boon.
The camel after receiving the boon went away to his own forest and being a big
fool he became lazy. He stopped to go out for grazing and whenever he felt
hunger used to extend his neck to eat the desired food without any work. One
fine day while he was grazing his food in the cave of mountain by extending his
neck to a hundred Yojanas wind started to blow in great speed and also started
a very heavy rain. That time, a meat eater jackal was very hungry, tired and wet
by the rainy water entered in the same cave with his wife. By seeing the
camel's neck there he began to eat it. When the camel came to know that his
neck was being eaten, he was in great distress and tried to make it short with
all efforts. But it was too late and the jackal and his wife were continuously
eating it. In this way camel was killed due to his laziness and not doing any
work.
One should take here good lesson from this story and give up laziness with
determined mind in all stages of life. Laziness can attack a person in various
forms. Oversleeping, giving excuses and trying to escape from the given
responsibility, gossiping, being too thoughtful and doing nothing etc. are some
of the sign of a lazy person. A lazy person cannot progress materially then what
to speak of making spiritual progress where one has to live with various Vedic
disciplines. Person’s spiritual advancement depends on his serious and sincere
regulated efforts for the pleasure of Lord Krishna. But a lazy man can not be
serious, sincere, determined and disciplined. Another problem with laziness is
that it takes and wastes our precious and valuable time available in rare human
life for nothing. According to Lord Krishna, laziness is due to ignorance.
Ignorance is opposite to the knowledge. Real and practical knowledge is
discussed in Bhagavad Gita. Krishna says in Gita one should make his eating and
sleeping habits regulated. One should not sleep and eat too much nor too less.
This simple tip of Gita will help greatly to overcome from the tendency of being
lazy and save our lot of time to walk on spiritual path. Our life time is limited
and according to scriptures we should not waste a single moment and use it to
achieve the active and divine loving service of Lord Krishna.