Many of us promise our parents high marks, and when the result falls short, the guilt can feel heavier than the exam itself. But no one controls results; they depend on far too many things outside us. What is in our hands is our intent, our effort and our honesty with what we study. The Bhagavad Gita says the same: our right is to action alone, never to its fruit. What if the only promise we made was to study honestly and with love?
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Questioner: Sir, after reading a few chapters of your book, I… It was really good. So I have a question. One of the chapters of your new book, Truth Without Apology. So there was a chapter which says, we get… Our parents tell us to get good marks to show off for our parents, to show off to our family friends, friends, their friends, my friends, neighbors, other family members. What gave you the inspiration to write about that? What made you write that?
Acharya Prashant: It’s happening, see. One wants to write about it because it is happening everywhere. And it is happening everywhere not from a point that makes us free and gives us joy, but it’s happening in a way that depresses us, that confines us, and nobody likes that. Nobody likes that. Do you like to be caged? No. I don’t like to be chained. Do you like to be suppressed? No. Don’t you enjoy being free? That’s human nature. That’s human nature. And when you see that human nature is not being respected, then you need to raise that.
Questioner: Sir, thank you for that answer, but there’s one doubt I got when you were saying that. Sir, why don’t they care when they said, “Go get good marks, beta, go get good marks.” Okay, my parents, okay, they’re saying that because they want something, or they want to do, or they want to flex to someone. But sir, why don’t they ever care about how much impact that gives on us? Because we think that, yes, our parents believe on us. How would they feel if we fail? How would they feel if we got bad marks? If it gives us a lot of stress upon our exams. Already we had, sir, stress from all the subjects we had, but they’re giving us more stress saying that, “Beta, you need to get good marks.” Sir, it’s not like a question, not a doubt. It’s just like a normal truth.
