When we live in a competitive world how can we avoid comparing ourselves with others?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So, I was actually waiting for this question. So, when I said that we should not look at others and if we sometimes see that others are more successful, that may cause us dissatisfaction or that comparing mentality is there.
So, what do we do about that? When I said that our ambition should be inside out, not outside in, that doesn’t mean that we don’t look at the outside world and don’t care for the outside world. We live in a world and practically, we live in a competitive world. So, what others are doing is going to shape the result of what we are doing.
I may study very well for an exam, but if all other students study better than me and the percentile may come out poor, then the result is going to be that we are not going to get the result. So, I was in Phoenix in Intel. I gave a three-part talk on competition, constructive and destructive.
So, I am here, others are here. So, the difference between constructive and destructive competition is that destructive competition means my center is pushing the other person down. Constructive competition is the other person inspires me to become better.
Become better doesn’t necessarily mean that I have to possess more than that person. It simply means that I strive to perform better. I strive to contribute more.
I strive to improve myself. So, we all are social creatures and what people around us are doing naturally affects us. So, how can we make our competition constructive? That is, there are three things in it.
First is that we don’t desire the other person’s distress. If that is happening, then that is very much destructive. Second is that when we strive to improve ourselves, we can get inspiration from others.
There is inspiration from others and there is imitation of others. So, we have to understand that I am my own person and he or she is a different person. So, I don’t have to become better than that person.
I have to become the best me. And if they become the best me, that’s fine. And if their best is better than my best, that’s okay.
My purpose should be to become my best. And quite often it is when we see others doing something well, that’s what inspires us to do it. It can be in material life, it can be in spiritual life.
If we are distributing books, we see other devotees distributing a lot of books that inspires us. Let me also distribute books. So, taking inspiration from others is very good because we are social creatures.
So, we take inspiration from others and try to do our best. But again, the purpose is what? I want to make my best contribution. My reference point is not that I want to become better than them.
My purpose is that I want to do my best. So, there can be competition in the mode of ignorance, there can be competition in the mode of passion, competition in the mode of goodness and competition in transcendence. Competition in the mode of ignorance means that if I can’t succeed, nobody else will succeed.
It’s like, now there is a threat of nuclear weapons being used by North Korea. So, these weapons of mass destruction, they are said to lead to MAD. MAD is Mutually Assured Destruction.
So, the idea is, if I can’t win, I’ll make sure that you don’t win. So, that is destructive, that is tamasic. In the mode of passion, our goal is, if I want to succeed, I don’t care what happens to others.
I may not intentionally want to destroy others, but if in my success I trample others, I don’t care for it. So, for example, the way modern western civilization has progressed, we have had a devastating ecological footprint. The way we have damaged the ecology, it’s alarming.
You know, when I came from America to Europe, flying over, so in the airplane, they show sometimes a navigating map. So, there they showed at one place, we were flying over what is called as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. What is that? There is plastic, which is being thrown into the ocean, and now that is, not literally present as plastic, but that has not disappeared completely.
So, as particles, it is present. And that Great Pacific Patch is actually four times bigger than Germany. And just there.
So, all around the marine life is affected, and it’s very damaging. So, now when people started the Industrial Revolution, their goal was not to destroy the ecology. Their goal was, we don’t care for the ecology.
The ecology gets destroyed at what they call as collateral damage. It just happened. So, when we have competition in the mode of passion, we are just completely unconcerned about others.
We don’t desire intentionally the destruction, but we are not concerned about the other. In the mode of goodness, when there is competition, there is a whole picture that is there. That means, as I said, I am a person, the other person is a different person, and I want to bring out my best.
So, I also have my morals, I have my values, I have my ethics. And I am not going to trample on them to succeed. But I will do my best.
So, in the mode of goodness, the focus is on doing our best. Not on, we may be inspired by others. In transcendence, the purpose is to please.
So, in that mode, whatever will please Krishna the most, that is what is cherished. So, for example, some devotees, they went to their spiritual master and they said that, we are going to do book distribution in a very big way this year. And we want to come the first in the whole country.
Last time, the highest book distribution temple, they distributed 90,000 books. So, we want to distribute 100,000 books this year. So, then their spiritual master told them, he said, please bless us so that we can distribute 100,000 books.
So, they said, yes. He said, I will pray that you distribute 100,000 books and I will pray that you come last. What does that mean? That means if everybody serves Krishna more, Krishna’s message goes to more and more people.
So, in transcendence, our purpose is to please Krishna. So, for the pleasing of Krishna, we want to do the best. The different gopis, they all cook for Krishna and they all want to cook as well as they can.
But their purpose is not that my delicacy has to be better than their delicacy. The purpose is Krishna. So, we can have competition.
That’s not a problem. But if we can have constructive competition in the mode of goodness or in transcendence where the pursuit of one thing doesn’t blind us to the whole picture, then we can get inspiration from others without needing to have imitation of others, without needing to have the defeat of others or the destruction for others. Do you answer your question?