Does spiritual advancement make one materially lethargic?
So sometimes when we practice spiritual life we tend to become passive ultimately I have to rise to spiritual consciousness so why do I need to work so hard at the material level so how to avoid this passivity spirituality is not lethargy it is not laziness laziness is in the mode of tamasic in the mode of ignorance and spirituality is transcendental so there are three different things here one is lethargy the other is hard work and the third is over endeavor over endeavor means lethargy means I'll just move from this side lethargy means that one doesn't want to work hard and then one uses spirituality as an excuse for not working hard now Krishna says that if one thinks oh this is very much hard work therefore I'll not do this work and therefore one renounces the work Krishna says this is renunciation in the mode of passion it will not work this will not lead to any constructive fruit so lethargy is definitely not spiritual it is tamasic and then the other extreme is so if you consider pendulum one extreme is lethargy the other extreme is over endeavor over endeavor means that one works so hard that one has no what to speak of having time for spiritual life one doesn't even balance on material life properly there are people who become workaholics there are alcoholics there are workaholics they just work so hard work so hard that they don't even take care of their health they don't take care of their family they are just like unidimensional programmed achievers and they may achieve a lot but their lives are empty so that is also rajasic because what is happening they are just focusing on one aspect of life and neglecting everything else neglecting other aspects of material life also what to speak of spiritual life so that over endeavor is certainly undesirable we need a balance and over end lethargy is undesirable over endeavor is undesirable now what will be the balance that will vary depending on person to person so some people may have a lot of talents materially and they may have a lot of zeal to achieve things materially and then they can go in that field and achieve some things it's like when somebody comes to engineering there are different people who come to engineering with different motivations some people may really come because they are interested in a particular field they want to do research in that field they want to become specialists in that field if that is their drive there is no need to stop them from doing that they can do it but do it in a devotional way for others engineering is basically just a career they are not really interested in engineering they are not interested in going deep in the subject then they can just do whatever is required for building a career and they can focus on what is their interest which interest may be devotional or whatever so the balance what is the balance between not being lazy and not being over end that balance is not just one line that balance is like a spectrum and where is the proper situation in this spectrum that will vary for different people and even for the same person that may vary you know that person may when they are 25-30 they may work very hard and by the time they come to 40 they may say no I don't need to work so hard so that can vary so we have to maturely by understanding our own nature and by consulting our spiritual guides understand what balance we should need to achieve so that we can give due attention to spiritual life and also do the necessary in our material life does that answer your question? any other questions?