Having achieved a lot, why am I still dissatisfied?

Following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Questioner: Sometimes we start off as something, then we set a target. Then we achieve it, and once I’m there, I still look for something else. And once I’ve received that something else, I’m here again looking for second something else. So, what am I actually looking for?

Acharya Prashant: That which you commonly look for, and that which you achieve has a limited purpose. Its purpose is to give you a glimpse of what you are really looking for. A glimpse is useful but cannot be a substitute for the real thing. So, there is one target that you set. You achieve it, well done. And the reward is a glimpse.

The glimpse must impel you towards more of something. The glimpse is a fleeting sensation, a momentary revelation, a passing flash of light. And it’s one’s reward for the pains, the planning, the execution. And the glimpse says: ‘Now, surpass me’. The glimpse says: ‘If this much is this good, how good would be one step further?’ That’s what it says.

Q: Where does it stop?

AP: It stops when the glimpse becomes life itself.

Q: How far?

AP: Not at all far if you bow down to the glimpse and read it rightly. And very, very far if you start using this succession of glimpses as a proxy to real revelation. Kabir Sahab puts it very nicely. He says there is a light that does not require the sun. If your brightness is dependent on daybreak, then it would most certainly disappear at day end.

Which means, your inner illumination must become object independent. It cannot be dependent even upon the sun. Which means, that glimpse must become target independent. If you continue to get it only upon the successful attainment of one particular target or object, then the world is full of an infinite number of lucrative targets and objects. It’s an unending succession.

There needs to be a dimensional change. Once one has proven oneself successful in the attainment of these worldly glimpses, then it is one’s responsibility towards himself to attain something dimensionally superior.