Video Information: Shabdyog session, 29.3.17, Advait BodhSthal, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India
Description:
In this video, Acharya Ji highlights the Bhagavad Gita as a vital philosophical guide, urging listeners to focus on a singular, meaningful idea that transcends superficial goals. He emphasizes that true success and spiritual growth come from dedicating oneself to a grand, timeless goal that demands total surrender and transformation. Acharya Ji warns against trivial pursuits, advocating instead for a journey that involves losing one's ego and material attachments. He uses the metaphor of a candle burning brightly to illustrate the purpose of life: to burn away excess and "die empty," free from worldly burdens, ultimately leading to enlightenment.
Context:
~How to understand the teachings of Swami Vivekananda?
~What makes the Bhagavad Gita a unique philosophical guide compared to mere storytelling?
~How can focusing on a singular, meaningful idea lead to true success?
~Why is it important for a goal to be immense and timeless?
~What are the dangers of setting small, trivial goals in life?
~How does total surrender to a worthy goal transform an individual?
~What does Acharya Ji mean by "dying empty" in the context of living a meaningful life?
~How can the metaphor of a candle burning brightly inspire our approach to life?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Music Credits: Milind Date
Description:
In this video, Acharya Ji highlights the Bhagavad Gita as a vital philosophical guide, urging listeners to focus on a singular, meaningful idea that transcends superficial goals. He emphasizes that true success and spiritual growth come from dedicating oneself to a grand, timeless goal that demands total surrender and transformation. Acharya Ji warns against trivial pursuits, advocating instead for a journey that involves losing one's ego and material attachments. He uses the metaphor of a candle burning brightly to illustrate the purpose of life: to burn away excess and "die empty," free from worldly burdens, ultimately leading to enlightenment.
Context:
~How to understand the teachings of Swami Vivekananda?
~What makes the Bhagavad Gita a unique philosophical guide compared to mere storytelling?
~How can focusing on a singular, meaningful idea lead to true success?
~Why is it important for a goal to be immense and timeless?
~What are the dangers of setting small, trivial goals in life?
~How does total surrender to a worthy goal transform an individual?
~What does Acharya Ji mean by "dying empty" in the context of living a meaningful life?
~How can the metaphor of a candle burning brightly inspire our approach to life?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Music Credits: Milind Date
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Take up one idea, make that one idea your life, dream of it, think of it, live on that
00:13idea.
00:14Let the brain, the body, muscles, nerves, every part of your body be full of that idea
00:21and just leave every other idea alone.
00:24This is the way to success and this is the way great spiritual giants are produced.
00:30It's just that not every idea will be able to fulfill these conditions.
00:38The idea must have some worth, the idea must have some weight, the idea must have some
00:43gravity, otherwise you will not be able to make that idea your life, otherwise you will
00:48not be able to eat, live, breathe, sleep by that idea.
00:54Mark the words, take up one idea.
00:57That one idea has to be about the one.
01:01It has to be an idea that is arising from the one.
01:05Every other idea would feel these conditions.
01:09Have you not had ideas aplenty already?
01:14Have those ideas really served you well?
01:20Have those ideas survived?
01:24Have you ever been deficient in ideas?
01:27In fact, you have far too many ideas for your comfort.
01:36So you must be very clear about the quality of the idea that Vivekananda is referring
01:41to.
01:41Don't be deceived.
01:42Vivekananda is not saying, take up some random idea and give your life to it.
01:48Not that it is bad.
01:51It is impossible.
01:53Because you will not be able to give your life to any random idea.
01:59Sooner than later, that idea will wither down.
02:02Sooner than later, you will become bored of that idea.
02:06Sooner than later, some other idea will come to substitute that idea, as happens with us.
02:13You have an idea to go to Nainital.
02:16Next day you have an idea to go to Ooty.
02:18What happened to Nainital?
02:20Nainital had no immensity.
02:22That idea was not arising from your heart.
02:26That was just a passing wave.
02:30It went away.
02:30It disappeared.
02:33Now Ooty has come.
02:34Do you think Ooty is going to survive?
02:39You have an idea.
02:40Let me start a business in real estate.
02:46Next day you receive some other news.
02:48Next day you receive some other news.
02:50The first idea is gone, finished.
02:56Vivekananda is saying live by that idea and die by that idea.
02:59That idea, therefore, must have some timelessness.
03:03That idea, therefore, must be irreplaceable by any other idea.
03:09Hence, it cannot be an idea about the so-called little things of the world.
03:15This idea has to be an idea of the immense and you cannot really have an idea of the
03:22immense.
03:22This idea will then be something arising from the immense.
03:29You must, of course, give yourself a goal.
03:35But that goal has to be so total that it totally possesses you.
03:39It consumes you.
03:40If your goal is smaller than yourself, then very soon you will find that you are on top
03:46of your goal in the sense that you are the master of your goal even without achieving
03:51it and hence you substitute your goal.
03:52Don't we do that often?
03:55You set up a goal and because the goal is your goal, you feel that you are the controller
04:02of the goal.
04:04You had decided the goal and if you had decided the goal, you have the power to?
04:07You have the power to?
04:09Let the goal decide you.
04:13Let the goal be on top of you.
04:17Let the goal own you fully.
04:20That is possible only when the goal is God.
04:23That is possible only when the goal is totality itself.
04:28Then you will not be moving towards the goal.
04:30Then the goal would be drawing you in.
04:33Then there is no question of boredom.
04:36Then there is no question of shortage of energy because now the energy would be supplied
04:42by the goal itself.
04:44Now there is also no question of confusion because you are now a slave to the goal.
04:51Let the goal clear the confusion.
04:54You are just allowing yourself to be moved.
04:59You are not really moving.
05:01You are not the doer.
05:02The doer is the goal itself.
05:07As long as the goal is not tremendously big, life has no real purpose.
05:18If your goals are small, there are no goals.
05:22You will be frustrated if you do not achieve them and you will be doubly frustrated if
05:26you achieve them.
05:28Having achieved them, you will find that the next goal is waiting for you.
05:33And that is deep frustration.
05:37You will feel as if all your investment in reaching up to the first goal has totally
05:42gone down the drain.
05:46Give yourself a goal that is the final one.
05:49Give yourself a goal after which no more goals will be needed.
05:54Give yourself the goal after which the goal setter himself would be no more.
06:00That goal can only be that of your total annihilation.
06:04Let me disappear.
06:06Let me surrender myself to something so worthy that it deserves my total sacrifice.
06:15Unless your goal is that magnificent, that worthy, that tremendous, you will be just
06:23frustrated.
06:29Normally, when you have goals, you go to the goal to gain something.
06:46You go to the goal to succeed.
06:53The mark of a real goal is when you reach there, you won't be gaining something.
06:57You will be just losing.
07:00And you know that the movement to that goal is a movement in loss.
07:08So, you are being made an idiot and yet you move to the goal.
07:14That goal has to be so enchanting, so enamoring.
07:21Unless you are completely owned, enamored, you will not allow yourself to be looted and
07:33destroyed.
07:34The real goal dissolves you along the journey and you know that you are being dissolved.
07:44You know that you are paying a price, every step you take, why will you pay a price?
07:57That goal has to be extremely attractive.
08:03Do you get this?
08:05Know whether or not your goal is worthy by this test alone.
08:10Do you expect to gain something upon reaching your goal?
08:14Then that goal is worthless.
08:18Do you know that you are only losing and losing and losing as you go are proceeding towards
08:24the goal?
08:25Then that goal is worthy.
08:28If your goal gives you something, dump that goal.
08:32Real success then is your total failure.
08:38You have totally failed in preserving yourself.
08:40You wanted to preserve yourself and you totally failed.
08:43That is real success.
08:46Only a real goal can give you real success.
08:49False goals will give you a false reality.
08:55A real goal can give you real success.
08:57False goals will give you a false failure and worse still false successes.
09:10False successes are worse than false failures.
09:15You are not in this world to beef yourself up, accumulate, fatten
09:35and then die an obese man.
09:38You are here to burn yourself out and you must burn yourself doubly fast.
09:47The image that I love is that of a candle burning from both ends.
09:53Matter turning into light, sublimation.
09:58That is the purpose of life.
09:59Burn fast.
10:03Turn into light and disappear.
10:05Do not carry a lot of wax, a lot of fat, a lot of material.
10:12Burn it fast, burn it fast.
10:13You were born with a lot, die empty.
10:20You were born with a lot of clothes.
10:22Every child is born from the mother s womb, wearing just too many clothes.
10:31The purpose of life is to die naked.
10:35To keep on peeling off the clothes one after one, layer after layer.
10:46Such a goal must be there, a goal that denudes you.
11:05A lot of it I know sounds like plenty of madness.