IIT Bombay: Don’t challenge Maya without being prepared

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

Questioner (Q): Acharya Ji, you often talk about the importance of time, and that is something that bothers me in the context of my career. I don’t know if I should continue in my current job or not. I took the job for very ordinary reasons: money and position in society. But those reasons no longer appeal to me, which is why I am finding it difficult to continue with the job. I know that I cannot continue there, but I am afraid of what the public opinion is, I am afraid of what people would think of me. What should I do? Should I continue with this job and find some purpose in it? I am losing a lot of time by being occupied in it the way I currently am.

Acharya Prashant (AP): When you are serious about victory, you do not strike at the enemy without being fully prepared. Those who plunge themselves into battles without having checked their preparedness are the ones who don’t love victory too much.

Don’t underestimate Maya. There were reasons which got you into your current job — public opinion, money, prestige, and all that. Have you so fully changed that these things won’t matter to you anymore at all? No. So, Maya smiles. Even as you contemplate your resignation and such things, she smiles. She knows that you are not fully prepared in the inner sense. So, you will resign and then regret the decision because you have just not thought of the consequences.

When you are to fight Maya, you have to use all your resources, especially thought. Think of what you are going to do next, and don’t overestimate yourself. Know that you still have a desire for social sanctions, money, and such things. So, if you resign from here, have you prepared an adequate and a better option? Or do you want to hop onto the road, become a job seeker, and later on curse spirituality?

And that happens with so many people. In a moment of excitement, in a spiritual fit, they put in their papers, and then their entire life they keep cursing all the spiritual teachers, books, and the entire spirituality itself: “Oh, I tried to be a rebel, a spiritual activist, and I did this, and see: I am facing the consequences even till date!”