Your goals come from your borrowed self-concept || Acharya Prashant, with youth (2013)

Acharya Prashant

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Your goals come from your borrowed self-concept || Acharya Prashant, with youth (2013)

Question : You said that we all have either same or similar kind of goals. But we are deciding our goals on our own. How can they be similar?

Speaker : How is it possible that two-hundred students sitting here, two hundred individuals sitting here, have the same goal in life?

On one hand you say, that we are all unique. Right? On one hand, you take pride in saying that we are all unique, and on the other hand all of you are running after the same kind of goals. Not only you, the students, but the entire world.

What does the entire world want? Similar things: money, respect, security. How is it possible that all these so-called unique individuals have the same goals? Surely they are not ‘my own’ goals. Surely, they are being dictated to all of us from an external agency. It is just that, the external agency has been doing it for such a long time and has been doing it so powerfully that we have internalized these goals, that we internalized these desires. But, you want these desires.

When you say, “my desires,” do you really want them? Did you say, “I want to be a software engineer,” the day you were born? Surely, the desire came from somewhere else. You were not born with it. Nobody was born with it. But all of you today have the same desires. They have come to you from an outside source that is commanding your mind, that has become the master of your mind. And this master has enslaved us so much that we have started believing these imposed desires to be our ‘own’ desires. And we do not bother to investigate that what is the source of this desire.

Ten years back, when the economy was doing wonderfully well, the seats of IT department of any engineering college were the first ones to be filled. Just because the economy was doing well. And if you would ask any of the students taking admission in the IT department that why he was taking admission in this branch, he would say, ” Because I love Information Technology. No, it is not because of the economic situation. No, it is not because everybody else is opting for IT. It is my individual decision to take admission in an IT program.”

Today, the colleges are struggling to fill their seats in the IT department, just because the hiring in the particular department has gone down. Now, was it really that person’s own decision few years back, to take admission in IT department? And in this current year, is it really the student’s own decision to not to take admission in IT? “It is just the way the wind is blowing. If the wind blows this way, I go this way. How can I call it my decision?”

Now, think of a leaf, a broken, pale leaf. The wind carries it this way this time; it may carry it the other way, the other time. Does the leaf has any right to say that it is out of ‘my own’ desire that I am going in this direction? Is it justified for the leaf to say that it is out of ‘my own’ desire that I am going in this direction? Is it the leaf’s own desire? The leaf has no desire, because the leaf does not think. The leaf does not bother to inquire. The leaf is so much like us.

Apnee marzee se kahaan apne safar ke hum hain. Rukh hawaaon ka jidhar ka hai, udhar ke hum hain .( I am not on my way because of my understanding. I move wherever the winds take me.)”

Then you say, “My desire, my willingness.” Where is your desire? Have you ever asked yourself, “What is really my own desire? Really, really my own. Not somebody else’s.” Ask yourself, “Where are these desires coming from?”

There is Mohan who wants to celebrate Diwali . And there is Rahim who wants to celebrate Eid . Is it Mohan’s desire to celebrate Diwali , or is it a Hindu’s desire? But if you ask him, he will say that it is ‘my own ‘desire to celebrate Diwali . Is it? Really? Is it Rahim’s desire to celebrate Eid , or is it the Muslim in him that wants to celebrate Eid ? But if you ask him, he will say it is ‘my own’ desire. Is it really ‘my own’ desire?

It is just that you have been brought up this way. The same Mohan, had he been brought up in another family, another religion, another country, another culture, would he still want to celebrate Diwali ? But he would say, “No, my religion, my desire.” Where is your desire in it? Where are you in all this? Are you really there in all this?

It is a great mistake to internalize the forces that are acting upon you, and start believing that they are your own volition, that they are arising out of your own independent thought. That’s not really happening. It does not happen this way.

Listener 2 : How to identify ‘my own’ real desire?

Speaker: Chhavi is asking that how can I identify my own real desire? What is it that I want to do? Chhavi, what will a Hindu want to celebrate? Eid or Diwali ? So the question of what do I want to do depends upon my definition of the ‘I’. If the ‘I’ has already been defined as a Hindu, then the want has also been defined. Want is a ‘W’. W= F (I). Do you understand this? Your wants are a function of how you have defined yourself. If ‘I’ is Hindu, then ‘W’ is?

Listeners : Diwali .

Speaker : So, if you want to understand or change your ‘W’ then you have to first understand the ‘I’. Go into that. How have I defined myself? Because, my desires are a function of my self-concept, how I have defined myself.

We all have defined ourselves. We all have created identities for ourselves. We all think that this is what we are. Unless you gain clarity on that, what is it that really I am, you cannot gain clarity, control, and independence in your own desires. It is a great thing to have a free desire, a free will, but you cannot have a free will when your self- concept itself is enslaved.

So, who am I? Ask that. If you are a daughter, your wants have already been decided. You cannot change your wants being a ‘daughter’. If you are Indian, if you are a social figure, then your wants have already been decided. You cannot change your wants, go to the question of your identity. ‘Who am I?’

If I am a son, loaded with duties, then my desire has been pre-decided. Then my desire will be to take care of my duties. Somehow earn a lot. If I am an obedient daughter then my desires have already been decided. Then my desire will be to do whatever my father says. If he says that there is no need to focus much on your career, I will marry, I will settle down and raise a family, and I will say, “It is my own desire.”

This is not your own desire. This is the desire of the identity that you have given to yourself. And that is not your true identity, you do not have to worry, let me assure you. That is just your identity.

Chhavi, your name is ‘Chhavi’ . That means ‘image’. Just an image. And an image is never real. An image is not the real thing. So do not live in images. Do not live in ‘*Chhavi*’. Find out what the real self is, and then you will know what ‘free will’ is. And then all your actions will be independent, and that will be the joy of living, and that will be the flight of living.

Excerpted from a ‘Shabd-Yog’ session. Edited for clarity.

This article has been created by volunteers of the PrashantAdvait Foundation from transcriptions of sessions by Acharya Prashant
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