Positive Thinking 24 – Don’t let a wrong definition of success defeat you

Transcript

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Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, welcome back to our discussion on positive thinking, we are discussing third principle in the energy sutra, ENERGY, so E is eyes, so fix your eyes on real success, so what is real success and how to fix our eyes on it, Albert Einstein said that, try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value, when we have a very limited definition of success, then we frequently set ourselves up for failure, suppose there is a competitive exam like say IIT JEE or CAT, then at that time, we actually observe that there may be millions of students who apply, and only a handful are going to succeed in that, so does that mean all the other students are failures, if that were the case, then life would be filled with failures, and most of us would be bound to fail, we need to have an understanding that success runs deeper than the first or surface appearance, once there was a person who was walking by a hill, and suddenly he heard a voice push, he looked around, this is God speaking, push, he started pushing, push, there was a big boulder in front of him, and this poor fellow was a skinny fellow, he started pushing, he pushed, pushed, and pushed, pushed, and pushed, and pushed, from morning to evening he pushed, and God said keep pushing, he came back the next day and he kept pushing all day, and he kept on pushing for 6 months, and then finally he got frustrated and said God, you knew that I would not be able to move this boulder up the hill, why did you tell me to do something in which I was bound to be unsuccessful, why did you set me up for failure, he heard the voice again, and that voice said, I never set you up for failure, what do you mean, you told me to push the boulder, yes, then how did you not set me up for failure, I told you to push it, who told you to move it, this person was taken aback, he said what is the point of pushing a boulder if not to move it, when he heard this, he said look at yourself, 6 months ago this person had been a skinny fellow, and now he had strong powerful biceps and a muscular body, he realized that his pushing the boulder up the hill had not been pointless at all, the point had been different from what he had thought was the point, he had thought of success only in terms of moving the boulder up the hill, but God had some other definition of success in mind, and that definition of success entered on enabling him to develop a stronger body, so we need to recognize that success is multilevel, it is not just based on one thing, and when we recognize this multilevel nature of success, what’s seen as a failure at one level may well be success at another level, and there is in every activity an internal success and an external success, for example in student study the external success is the marks that they achieve, the internal success is the culture of discipline, self-mastery and of an educated and trained mind that they develop, this comprises an inner success, so outer success may sometimes come and may sometimes not come, and even if the outer success comes it will usually not last for a very long time, it will come and it will go, what is going to stay with us is inner success, and it is this inner success that we should strive for, this inner success that we aim for and when we aim for and achieve this inner success therein we get life’s greatest fulfillment, so what we as spiritualist need to recognize is that in many situations in life when outer success seems to elude us, you know that there is inner success that is beckoning us, so the inner success and outer success, what do you mean by this? In a practical sense we all would like to have outer success, but outer success that is built without the foundation of inner success is like a house without foundation, suppose a student somehow mugs up the subject and gets marks, yes student will get marks but later on if in future years, in future subjects, in future studies, in future life, one needs a deep understanding of the subject and one needs educated mind which analyzes situations, one will not have that because of having taken the shortcut, so the illusion of being very learned and of having a big degree, if one had cultivated will come tumbling down at that time, instead if a person focuses on building inner success, then outer success will follow, so inner success is foundational for outer success and inner success is always in our control, that is outer success is not always in our control, inner success means we can always improve ourselves, we can always discipline ourselves, we can always move towards mastering and training ourselves and thus we can progress in the path to inner success, so as Einstein said, strive to become a man of value, not a man of success, man of success means one who is allotted by others and a man of value is one who has the capacity to make valuable contributions, irrespective of whether the world values those contributions or not, if one recognizes this inner success and keeps one’s eyes fixed on this inner success, then nothing in this world can dishearten that person, our topic is positive thinking and we need to recognize that positive thinking requires, it’s not an act of moving of magic wand, it’s a moving of the focus of consciousness from things that inevitably breed negativity to things that engender positivity, so if we fix our eyes on outer success, then we sentence ourselves to negative thoughts, disheartening thoughts, defeatist thoughts, because naturally in this world those who are, not everyone will achieve outer success, on the other hand if we focus on inner success, then we, because the inner success is by the process of steady practice and especially by devotional practice, which enables us to access the supreme power of God, by that we can actually, every one of us achieve inner success and with that inner success, gradually when outer success manifests, manifests in an organic and sustainable way from inner success, when we are ourselves self-mastered, people who want to be self-mastered, become attracted, who want to attain self-mastery, they become attracted and they become elevated towards Krishna by such an example, so therefore fix our eyes on real success, strive to become a man of value, not of success, thank you,