Acharya Prashant: Whatever you are doing, there has to be honesty in that. What is important is that you do not say one thing and do another thing. If you look at the great scientific discoveries or inventions, the scientist or the explorer would be busy in his chosen area of pursuit having disregarded everything else.
Columbus set out for India. You very well know for how long a period he was sailing the seas, and he was not reaching anywhere. He certainly was not reaching India because he was not even headed towards India! In that period, if you would’ve gone to him and looked at him—the food, the rations, the motivation were all in short supply—you would have said, “This fellow is a fool. He has left everything. In fact, he has left the entire continent for the sake of nothing. Not only that, he is going in the wrong direction as well!” But look at what he got: he got America. He got America because what he was doing was not a pretense; he was doing it sincerely.
At times, there were rebellions on his little ship. People even thought of killing Columbus. They said, “Let us get rid of this man. Just throw him overboard and let us return!” But he persevered.
It doesn’t matter what you are chasing. Be very very sincere. You must know that you are committed to it. You must also be very very assured that you are not blindly chasing something; you must understand that that which you are looking for is important. Discovering an entire continent was important; finding a new sea route to India was important. So, if this fellow feels that there is something very important that he must discover, let him get into it, let him plunge into it.
The only condition is: If you are doing it, do it fully, do it completely, do it honestly.
