Planning is good, but what are you planning for?

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

Questioner: I have listened to some of your talks where future planning has been treated as a form of insecurity. Although I am working now, there is no pension later on; so definitely, I need to plan the expenditure after my retirement. This makes me feel guilty that I don’t have the faith or the guts to walk on the path of truth. So is it that I am making a mistake by saving the money?

Acharya Prashant: The question is not that you are not planning, the question is what are you planning for? What are you planning for? Are you planning to take care of your usual expenses? That amounts to nothing. Or, are you trying to take care of your usual expenses so that you can dedicate yourself to something lofty? These are two very different things. I am saving for old age — Statement one, I am saving for old age so that I can take care of my expenses. Here the thing is, I need to provide food and other logistics to the soldiers. Not because they have stomachs, but because they have weapons. Feeding the stomachs means nothing but feeding the stomachs of those who are fighting for the right thing means everything. So, feed not their stomachs but their weapons. What are you planning for?

What you are planning for depends on the center that you are coming from. If your entire life is dedicated only to your own little comforts and insecurities and securities and this and that and trivia. Then you will plan for trivia. And, if you have something a bit bigger, probably something immense in your life then you will plan for that. And obviously, you cannot plan for the unthinkable one but you can plan for yourself at least. You may not be able to plan out the course of your journey but surely you know that you will be journeying for long. So you can plan to keep reasonable amounts of supplies with you. Do you understand the difference? I do not know from where this notion comes, that planning per se is wrong or spirituality unacceptable. What does spirituality have to do with declaring any one aspect of mental activity as right or wrong?

In spirituality the right center is right, and the wrong center is wrong. There is only one right and there is only one wrong. Whatever you, therefore, do from the…