Let life be a spontaneous unplanned flow || Acharya Prashant, with youth (2013)
Question: Sir, as I am asking a question to you, I am not thinking, I am directly asking the question. This means that, I have will power. This is confidence . Suppose there is a situation where we need to manage our time for the day and we have to plan our schedule where we can manage our time for certain activities and academics.
When I make a certain schedule, that I will do this at certain point of time, I am not able to stick to the timetable and then the time-table goes into the dustbin. Why does this happen? Why I donot have willpower to follow the plan?
Speaker: Let it go into the dustbin. You know that I thought that I will write, I wanted to write something, let us say poem, a short story. I will planned that I will write for two hours in the morning and then I will go for shopping. I will then come back, meet a friend and then I will study for two hours. I have planned my day this way. Right?
I have planned my day out. Now as I sit down to write in the morning something happens. I am so absorbed in writing that I don’t even come to know when the evening has arrived. A wonderful thing has happened, let the planning go to the dustbin. Forget the plan. Why do you need a plan? You go to meet a loved one and you thought that first we will sit in the park for one hour, then we will watch a movie, then we will have dinner. As you sit in the park in the evening, you find that it is sufficient. Forget the movie. Why must you watch the movie? Who is important? You are important or the planning is important?
I came here and the first session was supposed to end at 12:30. The second session was supposed to start at 1:20 pm. The first session was extended up to almost 1:30. The plan was to have a lunch in between. There was no lunch. Who cares for the lunch? Let the plan go to hell. The session was beautiful. There were students who were sitting and were not ready to go, even the option to go was there. And it was wonderful. Who wants to have lunch? Why must you live life according to a plan? Let it flow.
Till the age of twenty-one, complete your B.tech, by twenty five, have another degree, by twenty-seven get married, before thirty, have a kid, before thirty-five have another kid. Why must you live your life according to a plan? Why? And there is a plan always waiting for you. Why must you live according to it? Why must you be the slave of this plan that the society has laid out for you. Why?
Now obviously, if you have to catch a train or flight then you have to reach there on time. That much is needed. And sometimes it is a great fun to miss trains.
Listener 1: Sir, without planning life will go nowhere.
Speaker: *(After a pause) * I am looking for a suitable tool to help you understand. Give me that name tag. See, what is happening. Observe what is happening. (The speaker takes a string in his hand with a card attached to its one end. He starts rotating that string in circular motion). Because this is firmly attached to its center, hence it can do anything. Rotate 360 degrees, without the motion being random motion. Is this random motion? No, there is a beauty to it, perfect symmetry to it. Why? Because it has a center. Because wherever it goes, in whatever direction, it always has a center.
When you have a center in your life, it doesn’t matter where you go. Your movement, your life will be beautiful. Or let me put it this way. When you know where your home is, then you can safely, fearlessly keep wandering. There is no problem. There is a center. The one who will not have a center, will think it as random. But there is a center and that center is your understanding . That center is your joy. When that center is present then it doesn’t matter what you are doing, there is a rhythm to it.
Have you heard the sound of flowing water at a mountain stream? The mountain stream is not planning to emit a particular sound? It is not planning, it is just flowing, yet there is a music coming out of it. In fact, all the *raga*s in Indian classical music have come from the sounds of nature. Has nature planned out those sounds? No, in the smooth flow of nature there is music. Similarly, in your own smooth flow, there will be music provided that there is a great deal of understanding behind that flow. Getting it?
First thing that he said today was, thoughts come from the past. You can’t plan that, of which, you don’t have any idea. Planning is very limited. Planning can very well work in the world of material. To build this auditorium a plan is needed because this auditorium will be based on past knowledge, so you can build this auditorium with planning. But you cannot build life on planning because life is fresh, constantly fresh. It cannot be a product of thought; the building has to be a product of thought. The design of the building is based on the past knowledge which is contained in book, contained in experiences.
So, it is alright if you have a plan for this building, a design, and you build it. But in your life be free-flowing. Don’t be afraid if you are free-flowing. Many people are afraid of free-flowing. The moment you tell them not to go by their plans, they become very afraid. They start shivering, they start feeling very uneasy because planning gives you a sense of security. Planning tells you that now you know what has to be done. So, you feel good that things are under control. Planning makes you feel as if things are under control. It is a false control, it is a control coming out of fear. There is no value in this control.
Excerpted from a ‘Shabd-Yog’ session. Edited for clarity.
