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J. V. Kameswara Rao*

Rabindranath Tagore, the prophet of illuminated freedom, addressing an American audience on the philosophy of leisure said “outside the business office there is the assembly of stars. We are so much closed up between the four walls of an office room that we do not find time to look at the azure sky with its assemblage of stars that beckon us to look at them and send us messages of light that we may light our earthen lamps with their splendid light.� We must know that there are things more worthy to be looked at and enjoyed than to be possessed in this world. Life is not calculations and possessions. It is a thing that must insure for us an everlasting ineffable bliss. This world is a gift from Him to us and it must drive us always into a contemplative mood where in we spend some fragrant hours in praise of our Arch-lover, sit in a flowering mango grove, join our tune with the song of the cuckoo and chirping of the crickets and sing dedication of life in the silent and over flowing leisure.

Leisure is a very fertile soil. It is out of leisure that our civilization has grown. It is out of leisure that great souls had their awakening. It is only when a man is left alone that he begins to contemplate. It is leisure that ennobles a man and illumines his soul. It is the silent years spent by the sages of the Aryan lore. Sitting on the banks of the Ganges that begot our sacred books, the Vedas and the Upanishads, literature, science etc. Nothing worthy is born out of bustle and noise except dirt and dust.

Leisure is a panacea for all the evils of this world. It is leisure alone that drives you into a searching mood of your depths and makes you yearn with tears in your eyes for a harmony within you and around you. Hours spent in silence are never idle hours. They are moments that are immortalized and distilled into a beautiful thought. It is only leisure that you should devoutly wish for in this busy modern world, of course, as along as the individual feels that he is reaping golden harvests of thoughts out of it which illumine his life and make him filled with a bliss that is divine.

In the modern world man is too busy to spend even a moment in silence. The modern civilization is running at breakneck speed towards something like a volcano which is sure to burst forth and fill the world with lava. Man is releasing tremendous demoniac forces into this world and he is busy building sky-scrapers with the vain intention of blotting the sky out and with it the stars as well. He wants to reign supreme in this world. Let man begin to think rightly, then there is no longer war. The modern world with its complex machinery, its railways, tramcars and aeroplanes and colossal achievements due to discovery of electricity, must be able to plant a soul into its machinery. If he does not do it the machinery with its hydra-head will rob the whole mass of humanity. Modern life is so prosaic and matter of fact that we see very little poetry produced in this country. The world is barren of beautiful things that mirror the glory of God and the grandeur of Nature. Poets have become a rarity.

If the modern world should at all proceed towards that ultimate goal of human emotions, that heaven  of love where all humanity is one, where every individual enjoys absolute freedom it should be through and through with the over flowing consciousness of God. Man must plant a soul into his machinery, if not it will devour him.

Man must come out of his business office and begin to spend time in silence. Leisure is the elixir of life. It is leisure alone that can lift humanity from this cursed state of ungodliness. Hold your earthen lamp high above your head into the sky and cry for light! More light!  Walkout of your business office and cry out for leisure! More leisure. Let us make our lives worthy of being the children of immortality.

* The author died in his 90th year. He was a contributor to Triveni. This is a prize essay written when he was a B. Sc., student.