Question : Osho, What is the difference between “Easy” and “Lazy”.
Osho : Satyam Svarup, the difference between easy and lazy is the difference between the positive and the negative. Easiness is a positive feeling; it is not empty. You are overflowing with energy, but you are simply enjoying the energy with ease. The very flow of energy is becoming an inner dance. In this very sense, Chuang Tzu says, “easy is right and right is easy.”
Out of this easiness everything is possible, because it is not lack of energy, it is a fullness of energy, without tensions. It is energy relaxed.
And the more relaxed it is, the more fresh, the more young, the more potential to be creative. Laziness is negative; it is just feeling drained, having no energy, a kind of emptiness — No longing to do anything, no desire to create anything. One is simply tired, exhausted, spent. The distinction is very subtle. One can be confused. When Chuang Tzu says, “Easy is right,” you can think that perhaps laziness is right. Easiness is just the opposite of laziness — diametrically opposite. Easiness has a grace and an overflowing aura of energy. Laziness makes you almost appear like a corpse.
One ancient parable in India is: Two lazy persons are lying down underneath a tree; it is the season for mangoes to become ripe and a mango falls just by the side of one lazy man. A few minutes pass and nobody moves. Finally the man on whose side the mango is lying, says to his friend, “This is a great friendship. You know the mango has fallen just by my side, and you are so utterly lazy that you cannot even put the mango in my mouth — great friendship!”
And the other lazy man says, “Yes, it is a great friendship. Just a few minutes before, why had you closed your eyes — remember? A dog was pissing in my ear, and you could not even stop the dog or shoo the dog away, and you are talking about great friendship.”
These are utterly spent people — as if much of their soul has left the body. Just somehow they are breathing, with great difficulty. They are breathing only because nobody else can breathe on their behalf. If it was possible that somebody else could breathe on their behalf, they would have stopped breathing.
Easiness means disappearance of tensions, anxieties, disappearance of all kinds of perversions, of all that is unnatural, and just becoming a natural human being — so relaxed that no energy is being unnecessarily wasted, not even thoughts are destroying your energy… utterly silent.
A Gautam Buddha is easy. Only in meditation will you find one day the exact meaning of easiness — not in any dictionary. When you feel so full like an ocean, everything is possible if you want, but there is no desire; the ocean is silent, resting. And just the feel of resting energy is so blissful, so peaceful, that if you come close to a man who is easy, you will start feeling yourself, a certain relaxedness.
Satyam Svarup, avoid laziness and create yourself a pool of energy without any ripples, and the small statement of Chuang Tzu, “Easy is right” will be understood in its essential meaning. Anything that is not easy and creates tensions in you, anxiety and anguish, is not right — don’t do it. Follow the easy way to the point that you forget that it is easy. It becomes so natural to you that there is no need to remember that it is easy, or to remember that it is right. This is the state of enlightenment.
Easy flows the river of consciousness towards the ocean. Dirty Ernie is sitting in the back of his first grade class, a can of beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. The teacher says, “Okay class, today we are going to play a game. I am going to say a few words about something and you try to tell me what I am thinking about, okay? Here we go: The first thing is a fruit; it is round and it is red.”
Little Billy raises his hand and the teacher calls on him; little Billy stands up and says, “An apple.” The teacher says, “No, it is a tomato, but I am glad to see you are thinking. Now the next one is yellow and it is a fruit.”
Bobby raises his hand, and after the teacher calls on him, he stands and says, “It is a grapefruit.” The teacher says, “No, it is a lemon; but I am glad to see you are thinking. Okay, the next question is round and it is a green vegetable.”
Little Mary stands up and says, “It is a lettuce.” “No,” says the teacher, “It is a pea. But I am glad to see you are thinking.” then she says, “Okay, that’s enough for today.” Just then, Ernie raises his hand and says, “Hey teach, mind if I ask you one?” “No,” she replies, “go right ahead.”
“Okay,” says Ernie, “I got something in my pocket. It is long, and it is hard, and it has got a pink tip.” “Ernie,” shouts the teacher, “that is disgusting.” “It is a pencil,” says Ernie, “but I am glad to see that you are thinking.”
Satyam Svarup, just go on thinking and you will find the difference between laziness and easiness.
Source: Osho Book ” The Razor’s Edge”