To be at Rest is to be at the Destination even in the Middle of the Journey

Questioner: Sir, when you say rest, what do you mean by that, because something is always going-on, in the periphery, some or other activities are always being carried out?

So what is rest?

Acharya Prashant: Rest is to realize that none of those activities, which continue on the periphery, have any real value. Rest is to realize that whatever you are doing is ultimately not going to benefit you in terms of results. However, the doing itself can come from the point of being already at the result.

See, whenever you act, you act in the hope of a result. That’s what gives energy to our movement, right? Rest is not to hope for a result, but to be already there; and because, you are already there, so the activity is happening. Now, you cannot really take the activity seriously, because what can the activity now give you? Nothing much depends on the activity. Whatever is there to be taken seriously is not at stake. It is in a sense pre-obtained; pre-ordained and pre-obtained, both.

So, now the activity is a game, a pastime, just for fun. You can indulge yourself or you can change the activity. The activity doesn’t really mean much. You said things are always there on the periphery, now it is really only on the periphery. Now, you realize that it cannot give you something of the center.

For us, peripheral activities are not really ever peripheral. It might be a peripheral activity, but the hope of getting something essential from it is always there. Is it not there? That is what you call the result. That is what you are always expecting. By doing this, I will come to the point of non-doing. By moving around on the periphery one day, somehow, miraculously, I will strike the center. That is the engine of all our efforts. That I will keep moving on the circumference, keep moving on the circumference, and somehow I will find myself in the center one day. It doesn’t happen.