The delusion called ‘Achievement’ || Acharya Prashant, with youth (2012)
Speaker: Do you really want to understand what this whole business of ‘achievement’ is? If you really want to understand, only then we can go into it. If you are into it superficially, out of an obligation, then you will not understand anything. So do you really want to understand this ?
Listeners: Yes, Sir.
Speaker: If you think this must be a very, very serious thing in which we are investing our entire life, this business of achievement, then it is very important to understand it. If you think this to be of that great importance, then only you will be able to understand. And if you think that there is nothing to do, life comes and goes, and if we waste one life then another life is waiting for us, then there is no point discussing all this. So are you really sincere about understanding ?
If you have a thousand rupees, are you careful about investing it? Are you or are you not? Are you careful about investing your life? ‘Where am I investing my life? Why am I investing my life?’
If you are careful while spending thousand rupees, then don’t you need to understand how you are spending your entire life? Don’t you make all kind of calculations before you invest thousand rupees? So if someone offers you ten percent interest, but says that there is a maturity period of two years and so on, then won’t you actually calculate that what kind of return you are getting from it? You will calculate. Right?
Listeners: Yes, Sir.
Speaker: You will try to examine it using your intelligence. Won’t you like to examine using your own intelligence that ‘what is this running behind achievement all about’? Would you or would you not? Or the value of your life is less than even a thousand rupees? Is the value of your life less than a thousand rupees? If it is, then there is no point sitting here, then you may as well go, loiter around and have fun and then come back in the evening.
But if you think that your life is valuable, if you think you love your life, if you think that it is important, then we will talk about it. Do you love your life?
Listeners: Yes.
Speaker: Do you think that it is important to see how you are investing it?
Listeners: Yes.
Speaker: Do you see that it’s important?
Listeners: (Loudly) Yes, Sir.
Speaker: Alright. Then tell me that what is this game of achievement. What are you trying to achieve? Where do your aims come from?
Listener 1: Since our childhood, whatever desires we have, they have come from the circumstances around us. If we were under some different circumstances, then we would have been of a different nature altogether.
Speaker: What’s your good name?
Listener 1: Sir, Nishchay.
Speaker: Nishchay here has said something very meaningful. What he is saying is, ‘Achievement is aim’. You set up an aim, and when you get that aim then you call it as ‘achievement’. Right?
Listeners: Yes, Sir.
Speaker: That is the simple thing about achievement, that you set an aim, you get to it, and you say, ‘I am an achiever’. Isn’t that so? Are you one with me here?
Listeners: Yes, Sir.
Speaker: What is aim? Aim is a desire. You call it, ‘my’ aim. Isn’t that so? You call it, ‘my’ aim, ‘my’ target, ‘my’ desire, ‘my’ goal. That is what you call it. Right?
Listeners: Yes.
Speaker: Nischay has dropped a bomb on all of us. He is saying that you do not have your ‘own’ desires. That totally depends on your circumstances. You may keep calling it as ‘my’ desire but there is no ‘myness’ in it. What you are calling as your desire is a result of circumstances. Had the circumstances been different, the desires would have been different. Do you all agree with this?
Listeners: Yes, Sir.
Speaker: (Smilingly) Do not agree too quickly, because it is a dangerous statement. Dangerous to all your patterns and ways of life.
Listener 2: Sir, what about a situation where two persons who are in same circumstance have different desires?
Speaker: It doesn’t matter that their desires or their responses are same or not, because it is totally a hypothetical situation you are talking about. If two persons are exactly in the same situation, they will still have different desires. It is because two persons can never be in exactly the same situation.
Do you see this fact that your desires are a product of your circumstances?
Listeners: Yes, Sir.
Speaker: Do the circumstances exist within you or outside of you?
Listeners: Outside.
Speaker: So, all your desires come from outside. There is nothing called as ‘my’ desire.
Excerpted from a ‘Shabd-Yog’ session. Edited for clarity.
