difficult. As per the Shastras (holy books) their duties comprised of teaching, learning, performing Yajna (vedic rituals), accept charity and give charity.
The typical daily schedule of a Brahmin, according to the Sastras, is described as following:
• A Brahmin must get up two hours before the sunrise (Brahma muhurta).
• After getting up, he cleans his teeth, bathes in cold water and performs prayer
• Next he performs rites or sacrifices to the gods
• Next is the daily study and chanting of the Vedas
• In the second part of the daytime, the Brahmin must teach his disciples the Vedas
• Afterwards he must gather flowers himself for the worship he is to perform.
• Since he is not expected to earn a salary, he must beg for his food and also for the materials for the conduct of various sacrifices.
Shastras gave Brahmins the right to beg for their food and other requirements. They were not expected to accumulate wealth and own lands. They must donate excess charity to the priests. Brahmins were permitted to eat only Sattvik or simple food which included raw fruits and vegetables, milk, and limited cereals.
The daily schedule, eating habits and duties prescribed for Brahmins, were based on long experience of Indian philosophers. They had understood that the only method to create divine or eternal knowledge was to rise above the worldly pleasures of senses.
Simple Living: the only method for high thinking
The proof of any theory lies in the real-life examples of the world. We can ourselves see that all great thinkers of the world led a simple life. Some of them continued to remain simple and hence, they maintained their creativity till their last moment, while others fell prey to the worldly temptations and lost their genius.
Gautama Buddha is one of the greatest philosophers of the world, who was born in 563 BC. He founded Buddhism, one of the greatest religions of the world. He was the son of King Shuddodhan and was brought up in luxuries of life. He got married and had a son. However, at the age of 29, he renounced all the material possessions including his family and became a monk. He wandered in all places and meditated for six years before he got enlightenment or true knowledge at the age of 35.
Jesus Christ was the founder of Christianity, the most popular religion of the world. He was born at Bethlehem from Joseph and Mary. He assisted his father in carpentry. His parents escaped to Egypt to protect their child from the reach of the Judean king, Herod the Great. Jesus was lost at the age of 12 and no account of his life is available till he attained the age of 30, when he was baptized. Following his baptism, Jesus fasted for forty days and forty nights. During this time, the devil appeared to him and tempted Jesus thrice. Each time, Jesus refused each temptation. He started his public discourses thereafter, which attracted a large number of people and gradually gave birth to Christianity.
Albert Einstein is widely regarded as the greatest scientist of the 20th century and even of all time. He could not find a teaching job due to his unconventional thoughts. The father of a classmate helped him obtain employment as a technical assistant examiner at the Swiss Patent Office in 1902. The job barely provided him enough salary to make both ends meet. During these years, he stayed in a single room apartment with bare minimum facilities. Yet in 1905, he wrote four papers that changed the world forever and gave birth to modern physics.
Most physicists agree that three of those papers (on Brownian motion, the photoelectric effect, and special relativity) deserved Nobel Prizes. He was awarded Nobel Prize for his paper on Photoelectric Effect in 1921, i.e. 16 years after its publication. Despite being world-famous, he maintained a simple life-style and lived in a small apartment at Princeton University. He limited his wardrobe so as to save time in selecting his dress.