A conscious goal is extremely important in life. Meditators should know how they will reach their goal. It’s like if you see dry leaves on the road. The dry leaves go whenever the wind goes. The wind takes the towards wherever they are going. The dry leaves don’t have their own significance, their own individuality, that where they want to reach, they reach. The leaves will go wherever the winds take them. Sometimes this side of the road, sometimes that side of the road, sometimes on the road, sometimes in the jungle and it goes on. They do not have anything of their own individuality. They do not have a goal.
We can take another example like a piece of wood in the river. Wherever the water takes it, it goes. It does not have its own destination, it does not know. Wherever the flow takes it, either this side of the river or that side of the river, it just goes on. No individuality. So the same way if we are lost, then where will we reach? This is extremely important to think about. It is important to introspect in life where we will go, to know what we want in life, to have a conscious goal. Not a goal of generating corporations, the CEO sets up the goal and makes everybody a fool to reach that goal, that “We have a vision, vision, vision!!” And that vision, how much destruction it is doing, we don’t know. And in the vision we are part of it and we keep doing it. We do not think why we are doing that. We do not have our own individuality. For example, somebody is doing a computer job and his project manager says, “We want to achieve together, something more than what we have done!” He inspires them and as they get inspired they don’t have their individuality. They don’t even think, “Why should I work on this thing? Whom is it helping? Is this a software program being developed to destroy people, to be used in the War, to generate electronic magnetic radiation, what is the purpose of it?” I’m not saying anything specific that is not good. But the individual who is in that should think, “What am I doing in life and why am I doing it? What is my goal?” If the goal is clear, then the resources can be allocated to it and then we go directly towards it. If the goal is not there then energy is spread and then it is not utilized in a focused manner towards the goal and then the purpose of one’s life is lost.
Take the example of the prism. You might have done it in your schools. With the prism we pass the sunlight and in front is a paper. When the light passes what happens? The paper burns.
Why is it burning?
And why is the same sunlight not burning us right now? We need to think about that. Why is that happening? The prism consolidates and focuses all the rays and then directs them towards the object. They are all together. Not wasting it. So then it has the power to burn. We are sitting here, walking, talking, eating, meditating and we don’t burn because the rays are spread. The same way in life, our purpose is not clear, or if it’s clear it’s partial. For example, just saying the words, “I want to know God and then what I do… I don’t know. I want to know who I am, from where I came, where I will go.” But then what we do is the total opposite. We keep on chit chatting, gossiping and destroying our energy. So have the goal. This will help in allocating the resources towards it. As you have the goal clear, then have the vision statement or the goal and have the key priorities that to achieve this goal I need to do this, this, this, etc… And in priorities your goal can be to know truth, your goal can be to live happy and joyfully, any one. A pure body, pure thoughts, pure emotions. These projects you would need, a project to make the body pure, a project to make the thoughts pure, a project to make the emotions pure. And all these projects can be together. These three will lead towards a happy and joyful life. Further on, if the goal is to know truth, these are the fundamentals, they set up a platform to know truth. Then we would need to separate from the body, so the body separates and the soul separates. There are ways, processes to do it, then we have to go into a state of no mind. There are ways to achieve that. A state of!thoughtlessness. There are ways to be in that. And then a state of emotionlessness. Going beyond the emotions. There are ways to do this. So if you are separated from the body and you are in a thoughtless state and you are in an emotionless state, that opens a gateway for Samadhi, to know truth.
So introspect that we need to have a goal, we need to work on achieving that. If you take the example of Lord of Gautam Buddha. When he was born Buddha’s parents called the people who see the future and out of all of them, except one person, everyone unanimously said either he will be a great emperor or a great monk, a baba. His parents didn’t like the one who said he will be a great monk, but the others who said he will be a great emperor. To reduce this risk of him becoming a baba his parents never once had any old person around him. All the young people, young women, young men, they used to be in his service always. Even the dead flowers or the dead leaves would be removed in the night so he would never see anything dead. The significance was that he should not think “I might die.” He should not even come to know about death, they were instructed to never talk about death. Even if he asked , they were not supposed to tell him that death exists and that he would die one day. He even had different houses in different seasons so he should not be affected by the weather much. All those arrangements were done so he should not know or think about death. But one day it happened that he was going to a youth festival and on the way he saw an old person walking like an old man with his back down and he asked, “What is this, why is this man like that? Can I one day be like that?” And the driver told him, “I don’t want to speak untruth to you so yes it’s true that we all will be like that one day.” Then he said, “Let’s go back, what is the point? If I’m going to be like that one day, what is the point of going to the youth festival.” It is also said that this is not what the driver wanted to say, but some supernatural forces made him say it even though he did not want to say it. Then they still went to the youth festival and then he saw a dead man. Some people were taking a dead man to the graveyard.
“What is this?”
“Somebody died and they are taking him to burn.” And he asked ” Can I die?” ” I shouldn’t be telling you this, but this is true we are all going to die one day.” Buddha said, “Let’s go back. If I will die one day, then immediately go back. We are not going to the youth festival.” And they turned back. So, this is introspection: something happens in our life and then we learn immediately from it, we don’t waste a single minute, a single moment. It’s good that you are introspecting, you are auditing yourself, you are writing your thoughts, you are thinking on other topics. But is it real or is it just like, “Ok! I’m just doing this exercise because I’m being asked to.” It should bring a change in our life. Then it’s real introspection, deep down we have to touch our being otherwise it’s not leading towards the goal which we have and it’s not that much of a help. So a conscious goal is extremely important in life and an introspection which leads us to the conscious goal is also extremely important.
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