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~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Video Information: Samvaad Session, 10.02.2018, Goa, India
Context:
~ How to achieve goals?
~ What is a worthy goal?
~ How to be a winner in life?
~ What is pain?
~ What is success?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~ .
Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquiry-gita-course?cmId=m00056
📚 Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books?
Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?cmId=m00056
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Video Information: Samvaad Session, 10.02.2018, Goa, India
Context:
~ How to achieve goals?
~ What is a worthy goal?
~ How to be a winner in life?
~ What is pain?
~ What is success?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~ .
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00So usually when we want to achieve something or we want to become a better person, we usually
00:14push boundaries.
00:15And when we push boundaries, we encounter pain.
00:19So now what happens is usually every day when I'm trying to push my boundaries in any field,
00:26for example, then the pain starts accumulating over time and that is slowly at the end of
00:31the week or end of the month, it will just implode.
00:35So what is your suggestion for this?
00:38You see, if the goal is worthy, then the worthiness of the goal is itself the antidote for the
00:46pain.
00:47Pain cannot accumulate if the goal has been right.
00:52Please understand this.
00:54Usually when you are pushing ego boundaries, when you are pushing the limits of patterns,
01:00then pain is inevitable, right?
01:05But that pain will be lesser than and dissolved by the fruit of your endeavor if the endeavor
01:16has been in the right direction.
01:22It is basic, please understand.
01:25If the goal is not worthy enough, then why go through the pain?
01:34The very fact that you are enduring pain for the sake of a goal implies that the goal must
01:43be bigger than the pain.
01:47Why else would you endure the pain?
01:51So if the goal is right, then the pain that you get in service of that goal is smaller
01:59than the relief that the goal brings.
02:03Whereas if pain is accumulating goal after goal, what does that tell about the quality
02:12of your goals?
02:15It means that the goals themselves have been insubstantive.
02:20It means that the goals have not been right.
02:26So there has been a net negative trade-off.
02:31You have endured a lot of pain and the attainment of the goal has not brought proportionate
02:39relief.
02:41You have suffered a loss in the transaction.
02:45Sir, but for example, it would be very easy to say watch TV every day and then we will
02:52of course feel no pain.
02:54But then say we want to say, we'll take an easy case of trying to lift many.
02:59It is not at all true that if you watch TV every day, you do not face any pain.
03:05It is just that instantaneously you may not be conscious enough to know that you are in
03:12pain.
03:14In fact, if you are not in pain, why would you watch long hours of TV?
03:21Watching long hours of TV itself suggests that you are trying to escape from some kind
03:26of a pain and taking refuge in TV.
03:32It is not as if leading a so-called easy life implies that the life is pain-free.
03:40If you are leading a so-called easy life, comfortable life, a life of privileges and
03:47luxuries, then there is a lot of pain there.
03:54You were about to give the example of lifting weights in gym.
04:01You see, why do people continue gyming then?
04:05If there were only pain involved in gyming, would anybody continue to gym?
04:15There are two things that are happening concurrently with the pain.
04:25One, your body is visibly changing.
04:31And second, your ability to lift weight is also increasing.
04:38That which used to pain you a month back does not pain you a month later.
04:44Or does it?
04:4510 pounds used to be a pain and now 10 pounds is a feather.
04:52Don't you know that?
04:53That's the whole process of gyming.
04:55And even when 10 pounds is a mountain, you very well know what it is going to give you.
05:04And that is why people continue to gym.
05:08It is not as if the rewards are hidden somewhere in eternity.
05:14The rewards of a good deed are instantaneous.
05:21And that is why those who have known life have willingly embraced pain.
05:27It is not as if they hated themselves.
05:33They were not keen on making themselves suffer.
05:41In fact, they loved themselves so much that they wanted to enter into all kinds of favorable
05:48transactions.
05:49I may even call it favorable business deals.
05:53They knew what they were giving up and they also knew what they were receiving in return.
06:00They knew that that which they were giving up was petty compared to that which they were
06:06gaining.
06:07And so they gladly would push the transaction.
06:16And more and more and more.
06:22But all that I am saying is valid only if the transaction is really beneficial.
06:28Only if the goal is really worthy.
06:31If your goal is not worthy enough, then it will give you more and more accumulation of
06:39a failed life.
06:42You tried this, you thought this will give you an inner feeling of contentment.
06:46It did not.
06:47The scar stays with you.
06:50You tried that, you thought this will give you some kind of bliss or joy.
07:00It didn't happen.
07:01The weight of another failure stays with you.
07:08Don't live that way.
07:09Yes, please.
07:10Sir, as we have thought and got to know that, if we are getting success, that is a result
07:16of many failures which we have received in life.
07:20So shouldn't that be a good thing to us, if we are getting failure after failure, so that
07:25we can reach success?
07:27If we are reaching success, can't we treat it like that?
07:31See it is not necessary that all those fairy tales actually materialize.
07:37It is not really necessary that after so called hundred failures, the hundred and first
07:43attempt would be tangibly successful.
07:48You refer to Abraham Lincoln, you refer to Edison and there you say that after so many
07:55failed attempts, they ultimately succeeded.
07:59And to motivate ourselves, we keep parroting those fairy tales to ourselves.
08:06They may not really happen.
08:10Not everybody who fails hundred times, succeeds the hundred and first time.
08:16If you keep yourself wedded to that kind of hope, you may ultimately get a huge heartbreak.
08:24Far better than that is to redefine your concept of failure and success.
08:32If you really wanted to do something and you did it, haven't you already succeeded?
08:37Why do you want to place or postpone success to the future?
08:45Why do you want to say that only if this kind of an output will come, will I call myself
08:52successful?
08:54You are already successful if you did what is right.
08:58I might have to climb Mount Everest.
09:01But can I climb Mount Everest in one step?
09:05I can't.
09:06What is my success then at this moment?
09:09To take the one step that I can take.
09:13That one step will not take me to the top.
09:16But I am already successful because in this moment I got 100 out of 100.
09:21This is the best I could have done right now.
09:24And I have already done it.
09:25I am already successful.
09:26When the next moment will come, then we will see.
09:30Then again there is a challenge and an opportunity.
09:34When you deprive yourself of success for too long, you become desperate.
09:38Don't do that.
09:45Make your time frame extremely small, t tending to zero and be successful every moment.
09:56Hi, I am Alumnus.
09:57So every time I think of something related to social welfare or doing something for the
10:04public, I can't end up getting something because every time I do it, it's like one other way
10:13harming the public.
10:14If you are having a business plan, so it's going to harm the public in one other way.
10:20So how can I come up with something which can help the public as well as help me as
10:25a businessman?
10:26There is no and involved here.
10:30It is not as if the welfare of the world and your own personal welfare are two different
10:35things.
10:37If there is something that really helps you, rest assured it will help the entire universe.
10:43So you don't have to worry about the world.
10:45Worry about yourself.
10:49Before coming to terms with yourself, before putting your own house in order, if you start
10:54worrying about your neighbor or your country or the world, then you will be doing everybody
10:59a disservice.
11:02Find out what is it that will really help you.
11:05Let me tell you that same thing will help everybody else as well because at one level
11:11we are all one.
11:13If there is something that can really help you come to peace, come to home, it will help
11:20the other as well.
11:23To really know what the other wants, see what you want.
11:27How to find the same thing?
11:30How to find the purpose?
11:33Every time it is coming to this, find out the purpose.
11:43You have to depend totally on chance.
11:45And the good news is that chance is very abundant.
11:52You see, when you will deliberately and personally try to find a purpose, it will be your personal
11:57purpose.
11:58It will not be bigger than you.
12:02So you may try hard, but you will still remain limited within yourself.
12:09To come upon something that is really immense, infinitely big, immeasurable, you have to
12:22just wait.
12:23Wait patiently and let things happen.
12:26And that wait, that patience never goes unrewarded.
12:31That chance in fact is waiting to come to you.
12:35Your wait is nothing compared to the wait of that.
12:39Don't push your personal purposes.
12:44That is sufficient.
12:47The great purpose will descend on its own.
12:52You can do nothing to make the great purpose come to you.
12:57The great purpose remains at a distance only because you are too occupied with your little
13:03personal priorities.
13:07You are so busy with looking after this and that, my little home, my little office, my
13:13little affairs, that the great is kept in suspension.
13:20The great says, fine, you first settle all your miscellaneous chores and then I will
13:28come.
13:29When you will be ready, then I'll come.
13:33So we cannot even call that as a chance.
13:36It is not even a chance.
13:38It's an inevitability.
13:41It's a finality.
13:42It's a certainty.
13:44But that certainty too remains elusive just because we are not prepared.
13:50Or rather we are over-prepared to work only for our own personal world.
13:56My little world.
13:57Sir, you said when pain starts accumulating more and more, that implies that the goal
14:11is incorrect or is not justified.
14:12Yes.
14:13So now I have three questions regarding this.
14:14First is, how to come out of that goal?
14:18And second is, how to find a new goal?
14:21And third is, if I have found a new goal, how to know that it is worthy?
14:27You cannot find a new goal.
14:28I just answered that.
14:29You only have to wait.
14:33That is the second part.
14:34First part is how to come out of all the misplaced and wrong goals.
14:40You don't need to come out.
14:41Your suffering will push you out.
14:46What is the punishment of having a wrong goal?
14:51What is the punishment?
14:52You will suffer.
14:54And if you keep having one wrong goal after the other, your suffering will keep compounding.
14:59So you will be forced to give up your false goals.
15:04And if you are not forced to give up your false goals, then you are just getting stuffed
15:10up with explosives.
15:13You will implode someday.
15:15You will either go mad or you will go violent.
15:20You will either hurt yourself in the most gross ways or you will start shooting everybody
15:26else.
15:29You need not become a mad public shooter like in the US.
15:35You can become one crazy, protective and possessive father who hits his kids in the name of protecting
15:43them.
15:44Why did you return after 7pm, pat pat pat?
15:49This is as bad as shooting with an AK-47 at the town square.
15:56Or is it not?
15:58Do you hurt people only when you hurt them with bullets?
16:02Don't you hurt them with your words, attitudes?
16:05Is that any less violent?
16:09Many of you might have suffered that.
16:10You know that, right?
16:13It's sometimes worse than being stabbed by a knife.
16:17Yes.
16:18No, it is not natural or something.
16:32It is very much cultivated.
16:36If you remain in a certain company, in a certain environment, you can be taught to become fearful.
16:43At the same time, if you stay in the right company, you will find that your fears are
16:48illusory and you will be able to laugh at your fears.
16:53Do not call fear a natural feeling.
16:58Fear is just blind tutoring, blind education.
17:08Fear stays because you are so afraid that you do not even want to admit that you are
17:14afraid.
17:15You are not only afraid, but ashamed of being afraid.
17:21Come to an environment where you need not feel ashamed, where your fear is not taken
17:28as a symbol of your weakness.
17:32Come to an environment where your disease is acknowledged and where your health is established.
17:41These two will always go together.
17:43If disease is not being acknowledged, then health will not be established.
17:48Those who do not acknowledge that they are diseased, they will never get health.
17:53But you feel ashamed.
17:54Too ashamed to acknowledge that you are diseased.
18:03Don't be ashamed.
18:04When your disease shows up or when your disease is exposed by a teacher, feel grateful.
18:16But you feel vengeful.
18:17You say, I have been shown to be chicken hearted.
18:24I have been shown to be petty or revengeful or jealous.
18:31No.
18:33Coming face to face with your weaknesses is the best gift that you can give to yourself.
18:39How do we constantly dissociate or try to not get fooled by the false identity created
18:49by the mind which we have so heavily invested in?
18:54You do not need to have any method.
18:57If you are wrong, you will suffer.
19:02Your experience is your report card.
19:09Just be very, very truthful towards how you are living and you will know whether you are
19:13living rightly.
19:16If you have nightmares, if the entire day you are shivering and sweating, then does
19:22someone need to tell you that you are living wrongly?
19:27If you feel loveless, if you feel afraid, if you keep comparing all the time, if you
19:35have no feeling of commitment or surrender, then does somebody need to tell you that you
19:40are living wrongly?
19:42If greed keeps on overpowering you, if there is no compassion or sensitivity in you, then
19:51do you need a method to find out whether you are living rightly?
19:57It's all so obvious, right?
20:03Just stop.
20:04That's the method.
20:05If you are not going the right way, would you continue going that way?
20:13Just stop.
20:15You cannot parallelly say that you are on the wrong track and continue moving on that
20:24track.
20:25That is hypocrisy.
20:26That is double speak.
20:28If you are asking, how do I correct myself, first of all stop doing what you are already
20:35doing.
20:36Because if you are asking how do I correct myself, you are acknowledging that you are
20:39currently not doing the correct thing.
20:43And if you are not doing the correct thing, then your first deed should not be to ask
20:49this question to me, but to rather stop what you are doing.
20:54If you are going in the wrong direction, do you continue going and ask people, hey, what
20:58is the right direction?
20:59Or do you stop your car and then ask?
21:02Please tell me.
21:04If you have just discovered that you have taken the wrong route, what do you do?
21:09You continue going and continue asking?
21:12Or do you stop and ask?
21:15What comes first?
21:17Stopping.
21:18So stop.
21:20And once you have stopped, the right route shows up.
21:25It presents itself on its own.
21:28Your stopping is the proof of your sincerity.
21:31And once you have submitted that proof, the right route opens up on its own.
21:37It descends from somewhere.
21:39But it waits for you to stop.
21:42If you have not stopped, the right will not show up.
21:44So about the thing that you said about education, that its goal is not to constrict, but to
21:59enhance our options.
22:00So I was thinking at that time that if we are specializing in some stream in our institute,
22:08doesn't that investment of four years of studies lead to a little maverick of our options
22:16so that we are better suited at some...
22:18Don't make that mistake at all.
22:22If today is to be decided by the decision you took four years back, then why stop at
22:29only four years?
22:30Why not go back 12 years?
22:34When the best decision was made by you immediately after you were born, right?
22:39Mathematical induction.
22:42If today is to be decided by n-4, then n-4 must be decided by...
22:49And the whole process can stop only at the first second of your birth.
22:54Let us see what you decided then.
22:56And you should remain true only to that.
23:04Did all of you want to be managers or engineers when you were born?
23:08Then why didn't you stay true to your first instinct?
23:11Your first instinct was probably, you know, to wet on the bedsheet.
23:23Continue doing that all your life, wetting bedsheets, that's the purpose of life.
23:28As you evolve, your thoughts change.
23:37And they must change.
23:38If you continue to be the same after B.Tech as you were before B.Tech, then your B.Tech
23:49has gone waste.
23:52Has it not?
24:02Nobody takes the right decision all the time.
24:07One must keep correcting oneself, always.
24:11You wanted food.
24:14And you entered a toy shop.
24:17Now would you start eating the toys now?
24:23All of you who are doing your B.Tech courses in this campus, is your heart really with
24:30your B.Tech?
24:32Mostly it happens that you have entered a toy shop when what you really wanted was some
24:38water.
24:40Now you are trying to melt the toys and drink them.
24:44Will that ever quench your thirst?
24:48And you are saying, no, because I have entered the toy shop, so all my life I will eat and
24:53drink toys.
24:55How wise is that?
24:57Were you perfect after class 12th?
25:01How do you know that you made a perfect decision then?
25:05And if you didn't make a perfect decision after class 12th, why do you want to lead
25:09a life just defending a false decision?
25:13You are making two mistakes.
25:15The first mistake was to make a false decision after class 12th.
25:19And the second mistake is not to correct that decision and to lead a life based on that
25:25decision.
25:26A goal that is too far away in time is a false goal.
25:55The goal has to be extremely immediate.
26:00By having a false goal, you give yourself the luxury of not doing the right thing right
26:07now.
26:10By placing your goal five years into the future, you have given yourself the freedom, the false
26:16freedom to do any random stuff right now.
26:23The great moment will come five years later and then we will see.
26:27And today, well you know, I can just entertain myself.
26:34If you are preparing for a tournament that will come after four years, let's say the
26:38Olympics, then you need to have daily goals.
26:44Even daily is too big a time frame.
26:52You have to think in terms of the hour.
26:56Even the hour is too extended a time frame.
26:59You have to think in terms of two minutes, five minutes.
27:06Unless you are thinking in terms of the minute, rather the moment, you are just deceiving
27:12yourself.
27:16And when you are thinking in terms of minute, you cannot think at all because the moment
27:22is just so small that it has no space for thought.
27:27Then you just do.
27:29Then you don't remain occupied in thought.
27:35Then you just do.
27:36And that's such a great delight to just do and not think or wonder or worry.
27:43And going back to the car question, where we stopped the car.
27:57Now extending this to say an addict.
28:00Now the addict has stopped the car, but it is not so easy for the addict to now say reverse
28:05and go back or maybe take another lane.
28:09You said that you just stop and move on and just transition.
28:14No, I'm saying you stop.
28:17After that something beyond you happens on its own.
28:21I said the right route opens up on its own.
28:26Your stopping is the proof of your sincerity that you submit to somebody beyond you.
28:34Once you have submitted that proof, help comes from somewhere.
28:38The biggest help that you can offer yourself is stop.
28:42That is the maximum extent to which you can help yourself.
28:46After that more help comes.
28:49But that is not help that you are giving yourself.
28:51That is help that is coming from elsewhere and it comes.
28:54You just have to take it on faith.
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