You are destroyed by your greed to become successful. You have to understand the insanity of your greed,” said the Master.
“Can you dwell a little more and throw more light,” asked the student.
“When a frog is placed in boiling water, it tries to jump out immediately. If it is placed in normal water and then slowly heated, slowly it will die.”
“Your greed to be successful has to be watched carefully,” cautioned the master
“Men don’t plan to be failures. They simply fail to plan to be successful,” said William A Ward.
Most people lack commitment to call on their untapped potential. Most settle down to be a mediocre in life and complain for the rest of their life; while the daring few go on making changes for succeeding in their endeavour.
Let us look at life in a different perspective. Learn to meditate on life itself. For some, this may be shocking to grasp. Learn not be lost in one’s goal and not to lose sleep. Learn not to withdraw from life out of fear of going through difficulties in achieving one’s goal. Meditation need not be a withdrawal from life.
Neither it is concentration, where one forces one’s life energy to conform to a pattern set by your mind and thus get bound by its own ideal. This conformity to an ideal, to your discipline is a subtle kind of escape from the actuality of “what is”.
Man seeks reality through success and fantasies and thus gets caught in acquisition. One is lost in acquiring more and more for deep within one is empty. One needs a meditative alertness to see this fact.
Why one is lost in “becoming” successful or enlightened? Is it not true “becoming” mode is a limitation and a pattern? Does not one get bound by the pattern? Learn to see “becoming” has given only illusion of fulfilment. It is like a rose wanting to become a moon and a moon wanting to become a rose. If a rose can see the beauty of itself and the beauty of the moon and vice-versa, then one is heightened by the perception of beauty. Hence there is the fulfilment in the “now” and not in the “becoming” mode.
Can you meditate in your life on the power of “being”—be it at home or work—rather get lost in “becoming”. Don’t interpret this as there is no need to become successful.
We are more focussed on explanation and the logic of it rather than what makes life fulfilling. Truth has to be comprehended rather than explained. With the power of “being”, one can see the beauty of life and from that inner space, one can tap one’s potentiality to reach one’s goal. The goal is not equal to success, but the way to reach the goal—with joy, love, passion, commitment, creativity—itself is success. Then reaching your goal is an expansion of success, the tapping of one’s inner beauty and potential. This is a different and meditative way of looking at life.
Let your life be a space to discern this truth. There is no salvation outside you. Your mind is crowded with the burden of your greed, ego and anxiety and this leads to frustration and jealousy. With this frustration, you feel insecure, and through insecurity you want to be successful, thinking it will give you security. Hence your effort is an escape from the burden of your greedy, ambitious and egoistic mind.
Please join the online workshop on Spiritual Warrior Boot Camp commencing on March 18 and April 1. Email: support@prasannatrust.com. Swami Sukhabodhananda is an international management, spiritual & corporate guru.