What is the secret of excellence? || Acharya Prashant, with youth (2013)
Question: Sir, what is the secret of excellence?
Speaker: Excellence comes from enjoyment.
Can you excel in something you do not enjoy? Can you really excel in something that you do not enjoy? Since childhood you are fed on a diet of statements like, “Hard work is the key to success.” Now that is such a stupid thing to say, but it has been rolling on and on and on for generations. We were kids, we could not understand, so we accepted it. The kids are not to be faulted. But are we kids even today? Should we keep living on such flawed basis, on such flawed fundamentals?
Essentially you see, what is it that you are afraid to accept? You know, you are afraid to accept that life can be joyful, that freedom is possible. That is what you are really afraid to accept, nothing else. Were I to tell you that you know life is deprivation, and you must keep working and working, you would be too keen to accept it. You will say, ‘Yes this is the truth.’ But it is so hard for you to accept when I say, ‘No, life is bliss, life is freedom, life is love and life is not a torture.’ You will say, ‘No, this is not true. Life is a torture.’ You have been conditioned into believing this. This rubbish has been drilled down deep into your mind that life is a torture. You won’t accept this easily that life is not a torture.
Listener 1: How can those IITians, as you mentioned, how did they realize this noble secret of life? That life is meant to be enjoyed. They also came from the same background. They were also drilled, conditioned same stuff.
Speaker: Tanay, nobody needs to realize it. Actually you see, even the child knows this secret. It’s not as if those IITians went on a special journey to realize it. Even that kid knows this secret. What does the kid do all day, except having a good time? Have you ever watched a small child, a really healthy two-year old? He dances for his own fun. He will not dance to your tunes, and everything that he does is intended at his own joy. Right? So, even the kid knows that secret. However, after that a tragic event happens. That tragic event is, that the family, the society and the education, start conditioning us. The child is given a course on moral science, moral values. The parents become adamant in teaching him that this is right, this is wrong, this is the way life should be lived. Education keeps on telling him, ‘half yearly exams are coming, study… study…’ So the message that goes to him is that education is important; because half yearly exams are approaching. Education is not important in itself. And there is this whole system around him- TV, media, religion, ideologies- that fill up his mind with rubbish. Those IITians did not do anything extra. The guys that I am talking of, they didn’t do anything extra. They just escaped being made a victim.
Listener: Sir, how is that possible?
Speaker: Oh! The surroundings. It didn’t have anything to do with them. See, till the age of 8, 10 or 12, you are anyway highly dependent, because your neurological system, the basic grey matter, is not yet ripe. So, you are dependent and you cannot do anything about it, it is inevitable. And that is the time, when the society and the other forces, exploit you fully. What do they do? Before the age of 12, you are given a religion, without your consent. Now, your mind is filled with a lot of notions regarding religion. Nobody chooses his religion. You are just handed it over. Before the age of 12, notions regarding gender, regarding life, they are all drilled into you. And the body, the brain, is not yet ripe. It is dependent. It is dependent, so it can’t resist. Mind of the immature being, in terms of chronological age, is like a sponge. It just keeps absorbing whatever comes to it. Just as a sponge absorbs whatsoever comes at it, it just keeps absorbing. It does not yet have the discerning ability, the intelligence to discriminate. So before the age of puberty, at 12, 14 years, a lot of corruption has already happened, and you cannot do much about it. It is inevitable. A lot of beliefs have been drilled down. The entire world view has been created, and it is not your world view, somebody else has implanted it within you. But that can happen only till a particular age, and if it happens till around 12 or 14 years of age, it is alright. You cannot prevent it. But none of you right now is 12 or 14 years old. You are fully grown adult human beings- 18, 20, 21 years of age. If the process is still continuing, if the things that happen to us as kids are still continuing with you, then it is obviously tragic.
In psychology, just as in mathematics, there is something called the point of inflection, at 13, 14 years of age. You know what is point of inflection? The point of inflection is, when the slope changes from positive to negative, or negative to positive. Similarly, in psychology, you have that point of mental inflection, where you take the turn from being dependent, to being independent. Around 14 years is the ideal age for this point of inflection. It can come earlier also. It can happen at 10 or 11 also, but 14 is an acceptable age. A requirement for that point of inflection to come is that those around you must be very, very aware. They must realize that the kid has now come to a stage, when he must be made self-dependent, when all the beliefs that we gave to him must be declared to be external, and he should be told to look at the world from his own eyes. He should be told that because you were a kid, we gave you a particular religion, but now you are free, you decide whether you want to continue. It is alright. We told you what love is, what joy is, what life is, what money is, what marriage is, but now you must look at it with you own eyes. And suitable situations must be created for this point of inflection to come. Unfortunately, most of our homes, our families, and also our education, are not aware enough to give the child that point of inflection. The result is, that the larva is continuing to be in the cocoon, even at a time when it should have become a butterfly. The cocoon, the protective cocoon must be taken away, so that the larva can now change into a butterfly, and fly in the open sky. But that doesn’t happen in our families and in our education system. The result is we remain dependent; we remain full of beliefs given by others. We remain fully conditioned. Are you getting it?
Listeners (everyone): Yes, Sir.
Speaker: Alright!
Excerpted from a ‘Shabd-Yog’ session. Edited for clarity.
