Question: How can we know if we are trying to work on too many projects and not getting enough sleep?

Sri Chinmoy: You want to know whether you work too much? There are people who work for an hour and think they have worked for twelve hours. Again, some people work for sixteen hours and feel they have worked only for four hours. According to me, rest is when you take up a new job. In the course of a day, if you are supposed to do six or seven different types of work, each time you change jobs you have to take it as rest. Rest is all in the mind. The mind will say, “I have already finished one thing. How will it be possible for me to enter into another project?” But if you take each job as a golden opportunity to make faster than the fastest progress, and if you can consciously absorb each progress-step that you have made, then you are not fooling yourself by saying that you are enjoying rest.

The same amount of energy, the same level of consciousness you have in one job you will carry with you when you enter into a new job. Imagine that you are climbing up stairs. First comes one step, then the second, then the third. If you use your common sense, after each step you can see that you are getting tired. You will say, “I have to climb up like this twenty flights!” But if you use your heart’s wisdom, you will feel that after each step a fleeting second you are getting before the next step. This is your golden chance. You can say, “Here I am getting rest.”

Work can also be taken in exactly the same way. When you have five or six things to accomplish in a day, at the end of each one think that you are not only getting the opportunity to take rest, but also getting the opportunity to make progress. Left, right, left, right. When the right step is coming, your left leg is taking rest. When the left step is coming, your right leg is taking rest. So each time you change your work, consciously try to feel that you are getting rest. This is not fooling yourself; it is wisdom.