Planning is a product of fear || Acharya Prashant, with youth (2014)
Questioner: Sir, you said that life is going from the last two thousand years or so, and we are here for just sixty or seventy years. So, how can we change anything?
Acharya Prashant: Do you require two thousand years? Do you require sixty years? If you really, really want to do something, you would do it right now. Why do you think of sixty years or six years, or even six months or six minutes? You wanted to ask the question. Were you worried before asking that "I am going to live for only sixty years"? Did you think that "what is the point in asking this question"?
Q: But you just said that what can you do in the sixty years.
AP: Of course. For sure you can do nothing in these sixty years. But you can do what is important right now. You can do what must be done right now. If you think of sixty years, then those sixty years are nothing. But why must you think of sixty years? I am speaking to those who plan ahead, who think of this and that. I am speaking to those.
If you must think in terms of time and years, then please realize that there are only sixty years. But somebody who is not at all thinking in terms of those sixty years, he is good, fine, alright. How does it matter whether it is about six months or six minutes or sixty years?
Q: If you say that there should not be any plan in life. If there is no plan in life, then there would be no goal. What do I do then?
AP: You can plan, whatever you want to plan. You are entitled to all your planning. Go ahead and plan. But do have the eyes to see what ‘planning’ is all about. Go ahead, but realize what planning is. What is planning? Figure it out. Where do plans come from? What can plans give you? What happens when you live a planned life? Realize all that and then plan.
In your realization whatever you do, it would be wonderful. With your eyes open, do plan and then that planning would be wonderful. But do we understand planning? Do we understand where do plans come from? When you are very joyful, ecstatic, are you planning at that time?
Q: No.
AP: In your moments of love, are you planning for the next hour? You are a very dangerous man if even in the moment of love you are planning. ‘What to do next?’ You have a baby in your hand, and the baby is staring at your face. Can you plan? Can you plan at that moment? If you do that, then you are a very dangerous man, I repeat.
There is a beautiful garden here, in your university, right at the entrance. You go and sit there. There are two kinds of people you would see there. There are ones who go there, sit there, and just get lost. There is you, the grass, the plant, and the flowers. There are another ones, who sit there and start planning.
Q: Yes.
AP: Realize where does planning comes from. What kind of a mind is always engaged in planning? It is a cunning mind. The mind which is very afraid. The mind that does not know any joy. It is shivering in fear. It is afraid of the future. So, I can’t ask you to stop planning. Till the time you are afraid, you will plan.
Planning is the product of fear. You will keep planning till you are afraid. I am saying that understand what planning is. Then if you want to plan, go ahead. If you must plan, at least don’t plan for the things that are too far ahead. At least do not plan for all that.
You want to reach the university at a particular time, so you plan that you should leave your home at that time. But don’t plan for the six months ahead. Don’t plan for six years ahead. A daughter is born and the father starts planning about her education and marriage. What stupidity! Do you really love your daughter? But he will claim that, "It is because of my love that I am planning." Really? Whom are you deceiving?
How would you like it if I give you planned answers to your questions? This is not the first time a question on planning has been asked to me. How would you like it if I just press a button and a screen there starts showing you one of my videos on ‘planning’? Or would you rather want something fresh and live from me?
Have you ever been to an unplanned holiday? As young people, you must have taste for all these. A certain taste for adventure and thrill. I hope you all are not already driving cars. As young people, if you have too much money, go ahead and buy a super-bike. But don’t buy a car. Pick up your bike and go somewhere, unplanned. It’s a challenge. See what happens.
Q2: On bike?
AP: On the bike, on foot, by anything. See what happens. Once you get a taste of that, living freely, living without the structure, the bondage of a plan, you will not like the plan. You will say, ‘I am going, come what may. Let me see what happens.’
