Can our material progress and spiritual progress go together
Career and our material aspirations or can the spiritual and material go in parallel they can definitely go in parallel in fact the whole purpose of spiritual growth is ultimately to bring out the best within us we have talents, we have potentials which are covered and choked by the negativity within us and when that negativity is removed and spirituality helps us to remove that negativity then the best that comes out that benefits us materially and spiritually so we have I was quoting from the Bhagavad Gita the Bhagavad Gita is spoken to Arjuna and Arjuna was a great archer at that time that was the vocation by which he was contributing to society and that was the vocation by which he was serving the lord so spirituality and materialism may seem sometimes to go on opposite tracks because there are spirituality also takes some time you may feel this much time I cannot do if I have to spend some time in studying I have to spend some time meditating then I can't do that much time for studies so that way in terms of time commitment it may appear to be competitive but it is not because if we consider our own lives we can't study 24 hours a day we do need breaks and if we consider how much time do we spend everyday worrying every evening 7 to 7.30 is my worry time does anyone have in their schedule worry time like that no nobody has a worry time but worry is something which is just sapping our energy internally and this worry which just saps our energy it will decrease substantially if we give time for spirituality so like worry there are other forms of negativity there are other forms of waste thoughts that are there in us so in terms of time our time is not just taken by our activities it is taken by our thoughts also and the waste thoughts the worry thoughts which consume our time that consumption of time will stop when we become spiritual so we won't lose time because overall if we think the amount of time which goes in negativity in worry time in anxiety is substantial and if that stops we gain time because spirituality is an investment of time but it won't take away our work time it will take away our waste time it will take away our worry time and a more inclusive understanding of spirituality is that actually what we are is God's gift to us what we become is our gift to God so we all have certain talents certain abilities and we have been given those talents for a purpose but we all want achievement in our life so there is talent and there is achievement and in between the two what is required is temperament talent plus temperament leads to achievement now spirituality is what will strengthen our temperament so actually speaking if we become calmer if we become more focused if we become less distracted that's the essence of what temperament is so the temperament becomes better then the translation of talent to achievement will actually be more so far from impeding our material life actually our spirituality will enable us to more effectively translate our talents into achievements by enhancing our temperament do we always have to struggle with the mind or at some point does the mind become our friend eternally both is true we do have to struggle with the mind but the mind is not intrinsically our enemy it is only circumstantially our enemy what do I mean by intrinsically and circumstantially say you have a computer browser in your phone or in your computer you have a browser and say you like cricket very much so as soon as you type C you are going to some site, crickbuzz or something like that so it completes, autocompletes as crickbuzz, so as soon as you type C it completes that site and goes over there now suppose now you want to study and say you are studying computers so you want to go to some site like computer today or computer plus or whatever you type C, you want to type computer plus but it is going to crickbuzz why? because that is what we have selected as we have repeatedly gone to that site and the browser has made that as its autocomplete so now if we keep repeatedly choosing some other site if I keep repeatedly going to say computer today or whatever then gradually that will be what the computer browser will autocomplete and then it will automatically go there so like that our mind because we have acted in particular ways repeatedly that's how the mind starts thinking in particular ways so if we have let ourselves get distracted repeatedly we are studying and the mind says come on, look at this facebook look at this news, look at this movie look at this youtube, whatever if we keep doing this once, twice, thrice four times then that's what the mind uses as autocomplete but gradually if we, when that distraction comes, says no, I am going to focus on this, the more we direct our mind towards constructive things, gradually that constructive choices will be what will be autocompleted by the mind so yes till that point when our habits don't change when we have cultivated a particular mentality a particular mindset, a particular habit which is negative, as long as that habit is there, we will have to struggle but over a period of time, if we keep doing, making the right choices the mind's habits change and when the habit changes then the mind becomes our friend so the Bhagavad Gita says that all good things in life they will taste like poison in the beginning and nectar at the end yathadagre vishamiva parinamayam vrathomam so the initial poison is the phase when we have to struggle but once we go through that poison we tolerate it, we endure it I mean that poison is changing our habits once we go through that, once you have cultivated a positive habit, then it will be like nectar, we naturally do the right things and thus we will become, the mind will become our friend, thank you I don't recommend anything with putting it between with the client for example, the client says do step 1 you have to do step 1, step 2, step 3, step 4 but of course it doesn't suffice in that way his needs don't suffice there he says, can you do a little bit more can you do a little bit more over there after between your step 1 and step 2 and here is where, I am the king when a person comes to me and says, I will not do I will not do, I will I do know this that if I give him that one extra thing, then it means go through the process the process will become easier for him or when he says, he is not willing to pay because it is out of the requirement, so I think that this is the disruption that I face this is making it difficult for me as a person as to what to do and as I said it's not generalizing the process towards right things I am generalizing the process towards avoiding things or how can I yeah, so say when we are working with someone and we are expected to do certain things but then they ask something more than that then our tendency is I don't want to do this, if we do it it will smoothen the relationship it will make things better but the default mentality is to say no to it so how do we overcome this yeah the mind often chooses the path of least resistance that means how can I put in the least effort and get things done, that's what the mentality generally is and it is not necessarily always a bad mentality there are some things which may not be very important, just do them and we move forwards in our life so there is the tendency of the mind but there is also the capacity of the intelligence so that means when somebody asks me to do something more I have to use my intelligence to evaluate okay when this person is asking me is this person simply trying to exploit me sometimes we say give a camel inch and they will take an L we do a little for a person they start expecting more, they start demanding more and then we get squeezed by that and we may have had that kind of experience with others that's why we just stick to the letter of the law this is what I am going to do, nothing more but we don't have to paint all people with the same brush there are some people who are manipulative and exploitative and there are some people who are just in need at that time so we have to evaluate this case by case we can't say yes to everyone no the easiest way to make ourselves miserable in life is to try to please everyone if we try to please everyone this person says you should dress like this, you should dress like that you should dress like that, no just be miserable so we can't please everyone but that doesn't mean that we should not try to please anyone so there has to be a balance and basically we may decide that okay this person is asking me to do this, let me do this this time and then we observe the response and that person is appreciative and that person reciprocates and next time when we need something they help us as our relationship becomes better, things move forward better, that's good but if that person just makes that into an expectation and a demand and start exploiting then we may say I have other things to do this is what I can do, can find someone else to do that so the mind, one of the best ways to deal with the mind is to treat it like a child a child's feeling if there is a mother, the mother acknowledges the child's feelings but the mother doesn't always act according to the child's feelings mother's child says no I don't want to take this medicine mother says no you have to take it so basically we have to deal with the mind as if it was like a child and we acknowledge its feelings but we don't always act on its feelings, we use our own intelligence and act accordingly and basically relationships do require us to extend ourselves and when we extend ourselves, people there are people who will appreciate that you went out of your way to do these things so we have to learn the balance where we give people the benefit of doubt that means we don't assume that this person is out there to exploit yes let me do this once, twice and then I observe and then after that that person is grateful and things move forward good, it just becomes a habit of that type of person and we say no at that time so we don't let our relationships become hostage to the feelings of our minds, of our mind we use our higher intelligence and then we act appropriately does this answer your question?