Whose Goal Are You Chasing?
Questioner: Namaste Acharya Ji. So my question is regarding the mental pressure which students are facing nowadays in colleges and other educational institutions, due to which they take harsh steps such as suicide, etc. You all know about it, and nowadays these things have become common even in top institutes like IITs. This year, in IIT Kharagpur itself, there have been five cases of suicide.
So, what are your thoughts on this, and how can we not go into that bubble where we are so pressurized? So when we take that step.
Acharya Prashant: See, if there is a purposeless life without pressure, one just hangs on and rolls on, right?
We are considering a 2×2 matrix: purpose and pressure. Now, no purpose and no pressure, you are a rolling stone. Cool. At most, life will be wasted. But you will live on. You will just live on like any insentient thing, right? Or like a tree or like an animal. No purpose, but at the same time no pressure of any kind to achieve, to demonstrate, to change, nothing. I am a particular way, and the way I am is very insufficient, very suboptimal, but at the same time I do not experience any pressure, external or internal, to change or improve or accomplish or whatever. So I can just continue merrily living, right? The only small disadvantage would be a wasted life. That would be the only outcome.
And the opposite of that is no purpose and high pressure. We can examine the other two quadrants also, but that is not very useful. So we will straight away go to the opposite one, right? No purpose but high pressure. This is where suicides happen.
Contrast this with great purpose and high pressure. This person will have a zeal to live. Yes, there would be great pressure, but he will say, “I will live on,” because there is love, because I understand my purpose. And often, with the purpose, pressure does come, and he will welcome that pressure.
Whenever you accept a great purpose, it is a thing of love, and it is an extraordinary thing that society often does not approve of, let alone support. So there would be pressure.
The very nature of a great purpose is that it brings pressure along with it. But such pressure now is life-saving, even life-giving, because you know there is something tremendous to achieve, and you love what you want to achieve.
Your purpose is arising from your own clarity. It is a very intimate thing. It is a very personal thing. There is this little thing that I really love.
It could be a kid. It could be an institution. It could be anything. It is related to my heart. It is my venture. It is my baby, whatever it is. I am an entrepreneur. I am a mother. Same thing, right?
I have a purpose, and the purpose is to raise this because it is worth it. And raising it is tremendously difficult: India funding problems, infrastructural problems, regulatory problems, imperfect markets, monopolies, fragmented chains, logistics, all kinds of problems. But I have love. And now this pressure is life-giving. Even if now I want to die, I will postpone death. In fact, I will want to keep myself healthy, not just for my sake, but for the sake of this, my baby. Do you see this?
High pressure is not a problem if there is a purpose deep enough. So if you say it is because of the high-pressure environment in IITs and other places that kids are very, very tragically choosing to end their lives, you are seeing only half the picture.
It is not just about high pressure. Somebody who clears the JEE or some other entrance examination is kind of used to high pressure; otherwise, he would not have made it to the campus. Pressure alone is not the problem. No. But it is a very deadly situation where extreme pressure meets extreme purposelessness. Then one is being forced to achieve, and there is no love. One does not want to achieve, but there is a lot of pressure from the environment. And it is not merely from the environment, because one has internalized the pressure now. So, the pressure arises from within as well.
Others’ expectations have been soaked in, so they look like our own expectations. So there is pressure, then, both from the outside and the inside. And they are telling you: get this done, CGPA 9, best placement, this, that, everything. You have to be shining in co-curriculars. And someone is asking, “Where is your girlfriend?” Nothing. Even before placements, there is the matter of internship. Even before an internship, there are courses to choose. In many of the top-ranked institutions, if you do not have a CGPA high enough, you cannot even get the course of your choice. There is some kind of auction happening there.
So there is tremendous pressure from outside and within. So much pressure and no purpose. Nothing that you can love, and therefore nothing you can live for. You get this?
And why is there so much purposelessness? Does purposelessness start when you enter the campus? No. The very system is designed to rob you from having any innate, heartfelt purpose of your own. And how is that done? By supplying you with external, artificial, fake purposes. Right from your birth, you are always told what to do. Your purposes are supplied from outside: “Do this for that. Do this for that.”
There is no love in all this. There is no authenticity in all this. And so you become so used to having an appointed purpose, a supplied purpose, an implanted purpose, that the heart goes numb.
Even if you try, you fail in discovering something of your own. On your campus, have you heard students quipping? ”Par mujhe pata hi nahi hai, mujhe karna kya hai”(I don’t even know what I am supposed to do.) Have you heard? Haven't heard? Doesn't happen? I would be surprised if it does not happen with even a single person. This is the situation of each one of us. “I don’t know what to do.” And that is because the faculty within that can see, choose, and decide has become paralyzed.
If you do not use a muscle for so long, for decades, what happens to that muscle? Gone. Atrophy. Yes.
We are beings of clarity and love. Every single step should be taken from there, from your clarity and your love. And these two are one. Instead, our steps are dictated by random forces, random forces that have authority over us. Familial authority, institutional authority, religious authority, they are the ones constantly dictating purpose. Constantly.
The priests are telling you, “You are born to do good deeds and attain heaven.” No. I have not been left free to ask myself, “Who am I, and what am I here for?” Some random priest comes and tells you, “You know, you are born so that you can become a man in your next birth, and then you can attain salvation.” And you are supposed to accept that. Not only accept it, actually imbibe it, soak it in so deeply that you feel as if it is your own conclusion.
And the family: “No, you see, now you are thirteen, and it’s your boards, and this year your purpose must be to strike 99.” The muscle is not being allowed to function, so the muscle will get paralyzed, atrophied. It will shrink. It will lose power. Now, even when there is a need, a genuine one, to use it, you will find it failing. That’s what happens with us. That’s where our purposelessness comes from. That’s why people look so lost.
And when you are lost, anybody can elbow you towards any direction. You stand like this here, somebody comes and just pushes, and you start moving in that direction. And that is where the crowd comes in handy. “I don’t know what to do, so the crowd becomes very useful. Let me follow the crowd.”
We are talking about tragic student suicides here. We are talking about the loss of precious young lives. Please see where that is coming from. The process starts right from the moment of birth. Are you getting it?
The fourth quadrant: great purpose, no pressure, that is actually infeasible. If there is a great purpose, the purpose creates pressure of its own. And such pressure is auspicious.
Yes, you have intellect, but that won’t suffice. No. Intellect is just like this arm. It is a physical thing, cells in the brain. The arm by itself is not sentient.
Intellect is not consciousness. Intellect doesn’t suffer. Consciousness does, and consciousness requires a diet of, I repeat, love and clarity.
What impairs, paralyzes consciousness is exploitation, the kind of pressure, the kind of routine we inflict on the little one. You are a kid, and you are constantly being dictated what to do, and you are helpless because you are dependent. And then it becomes your second nature to just look to others for guidance, as if the others know, as if anybody in the crowd knows where to go.
And if you don’t look at others for guidance, you are punished in ways subtle and gross. “Too smart for herself.” “This chap is playing too rebellious.” “Something ought to be done.” “Let’s show him his place.” Are you getting it?
The fellow says, “Why must I live? If living means toiling for some faceless master, what an indignity. I am being told to work hard, but not for myself, because the goal imposed on me is not my own. So like a slave, I am being told to slog for something I don’t really care for. I don’t love mechanical engineering. Full stop. But I am being told to get a 9 CGPA." Do you understand this?
And a B.Tech or whatever, or M.Tech, these things are limited in years. The bigger tragedy is when we allow this phenomenon to become life, not knowing why one goes to the office and works for four decades or something. Yes, sometimes more than that. One doesn’t know why one is going to the office. One waits for the salary day. One justifies it by saying there are mice to feed and a table to keep food on. I have a family, and one doesn’t know why one has a family. One doesn’t know where the kids came from, but it’s all there, and you are supposed to take care of it.
And then somebody said, “You know, there are people who die by way of suicide.” And then there are others who similarly do die at 25 but are buried only when they are 75 or 85. They keep walking. It does appear they are still alive, but they are gone, finished. Purposeless, meaningless life. Why even call them alive? Go to the office, come back, watch some TV, scroll Insta, shout at the kids, the bed, sex, random boredom, snore away, the alarm rings, get up again. The same pathetic, dirty, boring routine.
But you say you are a responsible father or mother, and life rolls on. Is this what you are setting yourself up for? (The audience becomes silent). Very, very scary silence. You remember that Wasseypur dialogue(Hindi Movie)? “Beta tumse nahin ho paayega.”
There has to be a resounding no. Not necessarily in this hall, but to all those who attempt imposing themselves on your life. You’re educated. You’re smart. You’re young. “No” must be the first word in your dictionary, life dictionary. No. The default is no. Now convince me to extract a yes. The default would always be no.
Questioner: But, I would say, wouldn't it be a difficult road to take? Saying no.
Acharya Prashant: Difficulty and ease are all relative terms. Very relative. Please pick this book.
(The questioner rises from her seat to pick up the book.)
No, continue sitting. Continue sitting, pick this book, please.
Questioner: Efforts need to be there.
Acharya Prashant: No, no, no. You don’t need to make efforts. You need to leave your position. Leave your position and pick it up.
(The questioner picks up the book)
So easy.
Difficulty is only when you want to preserve your position. That is the ego. Your position is your ego, your location, your situation, your coordinates.
“I don’t want to leave who I am, where I am, and then I want to attempt something beautiful, something necessary.” It won’t get done. It won’t happen. And you’ll call it difficult. That’s why it didn’t happen. It wasn’t difficult. You didn’t have enough love. When you have love, you’re ready to leave your position. And that love can come only from clarity. We are not talking of desire here. We are talking of clarity here.
It’s not difficult, not for you smart chaps. I’m throwing stuff at you, and it’s disappearing into some black hole. I’m so impatient for something to bounce back to me. We are young, are we not?
Listener: Yeah.
Acharya Prashant: Yeah. And I dare to include myself now, right? This time. Yes.
So, what does youth mean to you? If you can’t rebel, if a no sounds so difficult, what does youth mean to you? Sex? What?
Listener: Fire.
Acharya Prashant: Fire. Where is that?
