Future: Escape or Transformation Opportunity?
Questioner: Atish Sharma is asking, should we not have hope? Should we not think of the future?
And Kanika is saying the future is unimaginable. You talk about how the future is unprecedented, and so it is stupid to try to imagine and make plans. You have explained the subtle difference between making plans and getting attached to the plans, yet practically I find it impossible to differentiate between the two. When I work towards an objective, I find it very hard to not think of the results and dwell in the feeling of achievement, whereas not having an objective feels like the end of me, just as you say.
So then the question comes in bold: how can we work towards something without expectations? Even the causes that seem noble, such as bringing about some positive change in the world, bring expectations of recognition, fame, or personal contentment.
Acharya Prashant: Atish and Kanika, hope, future plans, and expectation from plans, all right. See, you will have to look towards the past and the future both. It is not only impractical to say that one need not think of the future; it is also not scriptural or spiritual. There is no way the scriptures forbid you from looking at the flow of time. What else is there to look at? The present cannot be really looked at; whatever you look at would belong to the domain of time. Therefore, looking at the past and future is inevitable.
Now the question is, why does one look at the future? Why does one have hope? Why does one raise plans? There can be only two objectives, broadly.
The first is: I know that I am in the stream of time, and time means change. I know that I, the ego, am necessarily subjected to change. And it’s a truism, because as long as I am thinking about myself, as long as I can say “I,” I am the ego, and the ego exists in time. And time will bring about a change. So as far as this “I,” the thinking ego, is concerned, time is indispensable. Time will remain, and time will bring about change. You cannot have the passage of time and yet not change.
So the future is a very, very definite thing for the ego. The ego is vulnerable to change; the ego is defined by its changeability. Therefore, the future is there. The question is: change is bound to come, what kind of change?
Two possibilities. One, you look at the future with fear that change might come. Therefore, you want to arrest the flow of time and remain exactly as you are. That’s one way of looking at the future, hoping and planning, right? I’m looking at the future with the intention that I remain exactly as I am. Why do I want to remain exactly as I am? Because this is the place where I’m comfortable, because I’m too lazy and too inert to change for the better. I know I am in a pretty bad place, but I’ve grown used to it; therefore, I don’t want to change. I don’t want to venture out of my house, it’s just too cozy in here, right?
But the future threatens. The future says, “I will come and bring about change.” So my entire intent in looking at the future is how to not change, or how to prevent change from hitting my center. So even if change comes, I want to ensure it remains superficial. That’s my intention of looking at the future.
This is the situation of people who are devotees of stability in life. This is the way they plan. They say, “You see, my life has a certain configuration right now, but the future will come, and the future will come with the possibility that this configuration might get changed, reversed, whatever, restored. I don’t want to let that happen. I have settled down.” Unfortunately, this is the way most people look at the future, not with an intent to become better or improve, but with the intent to remain exactly as they are. Are you getting it? That’s why the future is such a big issue.
Then there is the other kind of mind. It says, “Obviously, I know I’m not all right as I am. I have to get better. I must improve. I must change.” Therefore, I look towards the future as an opportunity, a challenging opportunity. I want to be better tomorrow, and let me plan for it. Let me do everything that I can in order to be better. And planning is a part of my efforts to get better. You know, I’m doing a lot to get better, and that includes planning as well.
How am I looking at the future? I want to be the best possible. I want to reach the highest place possible. And when you are talking of the best and the highest, you know it requires the deepest that you can offer, afford it. Are you getting it? The intention is: tomorrow is the time when I would be better, and far better, incomparably better, compared to what I am today. And if I am to take up that kind of a challenge, it will demand all my resources.
Now, when you accept such a steep challenge, then you give it everything. And giving it everything includes giving it all your mental space, all your time, and giving up on the right to brood and be pensive and melancholy and afraid. Are you getting it?
When you have not picked up a stiff challenge, then you can afford to steal time.
Then you can say, “Right, you know, so much work to be done tomorrow. All right, I’ll do it. Right now, let me think a little. What happens if my plans fail? What happens if my plans succeed? Wow, it would be great.” So, as you say, Kanika, you can afford to revel in the feeling: “If my plans will succeed, and I’ll be, you know, reigned with glory, and so many great rewards will flow in, and such things will happen.” Alternately, you can be afraid and scared and psych yourself up and say, “My God, my God, tomorrow is the day of doom, and I’m going to fail, and the world will be after my life,” and such things.
Do you see what you’re doing? In either case, you’re not doing what you must. You are stealing away time to engage in your mental mischief. You’re sitting and brooding. Where did you get the time from? I used a strong word, you stole it. You stole it. Are you getting it?
Now this is what is meant in the Bhagavad Gita when Shri Krishna says, work without expectations. What he actually is saying is: work so intensely that you have no space left to expect or fear, or consume the imagination of success or failure.
Do you see this?
We don’t just imagine success or failure coming to us tomorrow; we consume that imagination. And that consumption, in either case, gives us excitation. You imagine that you will be successful, and it’s exciting. You imagine that you might fail, and that too is exciting. No? Don’t you get excited? Do you remain peaceful when you imagine that you are going to fail tomorrow? Are you getting it? That’s the trick.
Don’t think of the future with the intention to preserve the ego. Think of the future as an opportunity to dismantle the ego. That’s what is meant by becoming better.
Becoming better not merely in a relative sense; that’s easy. Not merely in an incremental sense. The challenge has to be huge. I’ll not just be a little bit better. I’ll not just be better by a proportion. I’ll not just be better in percentage terms. I’ll be dimensionally better.
The website has not improved; it’s an altogether new website, that kind of betterment. Now, if that is the challenge you pick for yourself, tell me, where is the time to feel happy or sad?
So, Atish, yes, we should have hope and we should think of the future. The question is not about the action, thinking about the future is an action. I have always emphasized that it’s the actor you must be looking at, and the actor is defined by his intention. The intention is the actor; the actor is the intent. Change the intent, the actor changes. Simple.
The question is: the action of hope is being performed by what kind of actor? What are you hoping for? Are you hoping for self-preservation, or are you hoping for self-dissolution? What the hope really is about, that’s the answer, that’s the question to be answered. Are you getting it?
So the whole thing you must see is a bit counterintuitive. If you want to be relieved of tension, pick up a target that is almost impossible to achieve. You’ll say, “But, man, that sounds absurd.” Yes, that sounds absurd, right till the last point, but not at the last point.
You see, till the last point you will have a straight and linear 45° curve between these two axes. The x-axis could be, you know, the weight of the target or stiffness of the target, and the y-axis could be the mental tension it causes. And what do you see? A straight rising line, a linear progression, right? Which means that as the target becomes more and more formidable, the tension within you rises alongside.
Now that happens for a long while, and then something miraculous happens. A point comes when the curve changes shape, as they say, a point of inflection arises. So the curve is going like this, like this, like this, and the target is becoming more and more difficult and difficult and difficult. And once the target has become heavily difficult, you find that the tension drops, drops, drops.
Now you realize that you have come to the point where being tense is of no use. Now you realize that you have come to a point where it is all beyond you. So all that you can do is sacrifice yourself, surrender yourself, present yourself fully to what you have taken up. No point worrying.
And if you are to present yourself fully to what you have taken up, then, as we said, you can have no time, no space left to brood or lament or think or worry. Getting it?
Which means that those of us who suffer from stress or anxiety are actually the ones who require a great, formidable, challenging project in their lives. Once that is there, then all your worries will evaporate. All that you have will get dedicated to the project at hand, including your tendency to worry, including the time that you used to dedicate to worries. All that has now been just given away. All that has rather now been used as a resource in the great mission. Even my worries are now surrendered to you, that approach.
