Article 057

Going back to the example where you’re a scientist, even this logic given by your brain doesn’t justify your wish to finish this project; that you must finish what you start.

Looking at this set of beliefs in its deepest sense, it should be rather understood as ‘if you start something, give it your best’. This sentence may look similar to the first one, it is a lot different and in fact this is the sentence which holds the true essence of this set of beliefs.

The first and the most important thing to understand is that no matter how strong your pride (ego) may be and how much push it may give to you, it is a fact that all of us as humans have control over our efforts only and we have no control over the results. Even the smallest or the simplest looking things may become impossible to do at times and this fact certifies this set of beliefs. For instance, if you make as simple a promise to your wife as ‘I’ll make coffee for you tomorrow morning’; are you absolutely sure you’ll do so?

It means can you be 100% sure that you’ll not fall so ill by tomorrow morning that you may not even rise from your bed or you may even live till tomorrow morning? Hence a promise even as simple as this is beyond your control because a number of outside variables are also involved. For instance, if an earthquake hits your city in the night and there’s no kitchen and no coffee left to start with, which means this earthquake may be destructive, how can you make this coffee? In this case, you may not even remember that you’d promised your wife a cup of coffee, as you may be so busy with other important things.

Therefore, when you make this promise, in deepest sense it means that you’ll put in your best effort to make this cup of coffee for your wife and if the variables beyond your control don’t play against you, you’ll very expected be able to do so. It means nothing more than this and in fact, this is all it can mean at the most. Hence a native with grown conscience won’t get attached to his promise beyond a certain point. It may sound strange to some natives as keeping promise is considered as the mark of a great man.

It certainly is the mark of a great man but keeping your promise only means doing your best and nothing else. Make a promise, do your best to fulfil it and whether it is fulfilled or not should be none of your business. This is because if it does become your business, your pride (ego) may be much more in percentage than your conscience. It is your pride (ego) which gets attached to such things like your image and it is not your conscience that does so.

One of the basic differences between conscience and pride (ego) is that the former encourages you to work for the universal wellbeing even if you have to face individual losses for that, such as the loss of image or reputation. Hence a native with highly developed conscience may not be afraid of even breaking a promise, if doing so is in tune with universal will, in a particular situation.

However, if such promise rises from your pride (ego), you may not care for universal wellbeing or anything else for that matter and all you may care for is your promise. This is because your pride (ego) cares for you only and it doesn’t bother about anyone or anything else. Therefore, if universal will is against your promise, you may not quit this promise and you may instead go against the universal will. Similarly, if variables beyond control don’t allow you to fulfil your promise, you may feel ashamed if you’re a man of high pride (ego).

On the other hand, you may still be peaceful if you’re a man of high conscience because even while making such promise, you knew very well that making this promise only means that you’ll do your best to fulfil it and it may or may not be fulfilled, depending on the variables beyond your control. Some of you may think that natives with highly developed consciences may then keep breaking their promises as they may not attach much value to them?

It may look so but it is not. In fact, natives with high consciences attach even more value to their words in the deepest sense and that is why they operate in a different manner, like a native with grown conscience should operate. Hence when you ask for a promise from a man with high pride (ego), he may give a straight promise if he’s willing to do so. It means he may tell you something like, ‘I’ll do it’.

However, when you ask for the same promise from a man with high conscience; he may instead tell you something like, ‘I’ll try my best to do it or if all goes well, it’ll be done’. You see, there’s an obvious difference between their answers as the former attaches all his pride (ego) to his promise and the latter only attaches all his effort to his promise, which is the best thing to do. It may look like you can trust the first native better than the second one, it may be quite the opposite in a number of cases. The promise made by a man with high pride (ego) can often land him as well as you in trouble, if you’re a part of such promise.

For example, if you go to a native who has some type of authority and high pride (ego) also; and you ask him to help you out, this is what may happen. You may tell him that your son-in-law has beaten your daughter a lot, he’s thrown her out of his house after that and she wants justice but the police are biased as he has a politician to support him. Hence the police are not taking any action against him. You tell him that your daughter wants divorce and you want a criminal case to be registered against your son-in-law, for the wrong doings done by him to your daughter.

He may ask you some questions related to this matter and motivated by his pride (ego), he may give his word that a criminal case will be registered against your son-in-law. It is natural for you to feel happy as you know he’s a resourceful native and he attaches value to his word. The process starts and both parties are called to the police station for initial investigation into the matter. This native goes with you and your son-in-law is accompanied by the politician who’s supporting him.

During the course of arguments, suppose your son-in-law or the politician with him tells this native that there’s nothing he can do and the matter will be decided in their favor. This is when his pride (ego) may get hurt and he may also make counter claims like they’ll face serious damage in this case. This matter goes on for some days and your side becomes sure of winning. It means the police tell you that they’re soon going to register a criminal case against your son-in-law and they’re going to put him behind bars.

Everything looks perfect till here and this is where the twist may come. Your son-in-law may come to you begging for another chance, he may ask forgiveness for his mistakes and he may even offer guarantees in written as well as some assurances that he’ll respect his wife in future and nothing of this sort will happen. His conduct so far may not make him worthy of being trusted and you may not have done so either, if it was a business deal. It means you may never work with someone who’s hurt you or cheated you.

However, relationships don’t work that way and they’re all about giving chances to one another, so that a balance may finally be reached. Hence when your son-in-law says so, you may duly consider his offer and on top of that, your daughter may express her opinion very clearly that she wants to give second chance to her husband. This is because she may have seen some very good times with him and there may be a number of good things about him which may convince her to give it one more try. She may also tell you at this time only; that she was also partly at fault for the situation which went beyond control. Hence you all may decide to withdraw the police complaint and reunite this couple.

This is where your problems may start. When you go to this native and tell him that you want to settle, he may not like it at all and here is why. He may have started helping you under any pretext but during the process, his pride (ego) has got attached to this case. It means that for you, it may be about the welfare of your daughter whereas for him, it may primarily be about winning one more case and proving his authority over the others, in order to satisfy his pride (ego).

Such attachment may have intensified when they had an argument and the other party hurt his pride (ego) by saying that he wouldn’t be able to do them any harm. This may have provoked his pride (ego) to make sure that the other party faces serious losses so that they may come to know who they’re messing with. Hence this native may now be much more interested in causing harm to your son-in-law than in benefitting you in some way.

Therefore, he may not like the statement given by you that your daughter wishes to reconcile with her husband and hence you wish to withdraw the police complaint. It may actually turn out to be a good decision for your daughter as the couple may gradually sort their differences out, after this reconciliation. However, it may certainly not be a good thing for this native as the other party had insulted him and all he wants is to put your son-in-law behind bars.

As your daughter has the right to withdraw her complaint at any time and as he also knows it, he may not directly do much in this matter and hence may take an indirect approach. It means he may tell you that your son-in-law is a crooked native, he’ll trouble your daughter even more in future and hence you should not withdraw this case; and you should instead put him behind bars for the wrong doings done by him to your daughter.

If you still express your wish to reconcile, he may give you another reason and it may go on until he’s run out of the imaginary reasons and the real reason may come out of him. This is the time he may tell you that if all you wanted was a reconciliation; you should have told this to him when you first came for help. You said you wanted to put your son-in-law behind bars and you should stick to your word now. He may then say that in order to help you, he’s done so much effort and he’s even born insult. If you settle like this now, how will his insult be compensated?

This is what he may truly want. His pride (ego) may have got attached to this case and it may settle for nothing less than prison for your son-in-law or at least a due apology from him that he’s truly sorry for challenging his authority. You see, you’ve got yourself in trouble now. In the beginning, you valued him a lot for making a clear promise to you but now the same promise has become the cause of trouble for you. This native may not be willing to let go of his promise now and instead he may convince you to keep your word also, that you want to put your son-in-law behind bars.

The native who looked so good to you may suddenly start looking like a difficult to handle native and you may find yourself in trouble. There may only be two ways out of this problem. The first way is for you to convince your son-in-law that he should come to this native and duly apologize for the challenges he made. Your son-in-law may not be willing to do so and even if he does so under pressure, this may lay the foundation of future problems between the couple. This is because your son-in-law may take it as an insult and as you may understand, the only native he’s capable of settling this score with is your daughter.

The other way out is that you don’t do anything he wants you to do and you leave him dissatisfied. If you choose this option, you’ve lost his support for future and the chances are high that he may indirectly trouble you in future; and especially your son-in-law. This is how natives with high egos operate and this is why you should be careful while dealing with them. Many of them may genuinely offer you help to start with, but before you know and even before they know, such acts of help may become the acts to satisfy their egos and this is when it may become difficult to disengage them from such acts, if the circumstances so demand.

Imagine another scenario and consider that this native is resourceful and he has high conscience instead of having high pride (ego). In this case, when you go to him, he may not give you a promise of putting your son-in-law behind bars. He may instead say that he’ll do the best he can and he’ll try to ensure your purpose is served. It may not look as good a line in the beginning as it did in the first case; but it may turn out much better than that, later on.

When he says that he’ll try to ensure your purpose is served, he may already have this option in mind that though you want to see your son-in-law behind bars, the matter may ultimately end up in a settlement and even he may be in favor of such settlement. It should be noted that for a native with high pride (ego), everything is all about winning or losing whereas for a native with high conscience, everything is all about universal wellbeing. Hence he may have already thought that if the situation turns out to be so that reconciliation became the best option, they’ll take it.

Accordingly, he may help you in a way that your daughter may finally benefit in the end and not in a way that he should have one more victory in the end. Hence he may welcome your decision of reconciliation when you deliver it to him and in fact, he may himself start putting it into your mind from the beginning; that at a later stage, if you’re offered a chance to reconcile and you find it good, you should do so. Hence the approach of this man may be to keep war as the last option and peace as the first option. This is how the unclear promise of a man with high conscience can prove better than the clear promise of a man with high pride (ego), in many cases.

Let’s now go back in time and look at an example from Hindu mythology, in order to understand the true value of a promise from lord Krishna himself. Before the war of Mahabharata began, representatives from both sides went to lord Krishna for his support. Duryodhana went from the side of Kauravas and Arjuna went from the side of Pandvas, in order to ask for support. Lord Krishna offered Arjuna to choose one option between him with the condition that he wouldn’t use any weapons which meant he wouldn’t directly fight this war but he’d do his best to help his side win the war; and between his army which was one of the largest armies of that time.

Lord Krishna told Arjuna that whichever option he chose, the other option would be given to Duryodhana. Having heard this, Arjuna chose weaponless lord Krishna and hence the army was ordered to fight in favor of Duryodhana. The war started and a moment came when Arjuna refused to kill Bheeshma who was his grandfather and who was fighting from the opposite side. Bheeshma was a great warrior and except Arjuna, no warrior could match him. The war started to turn in favor of Kauravas but Arjuna refused to kill Bheeshma, despite lord Krishna’s repeated motivation. For readers who don’t know this story; Lord Krishna took the job of being Arjuna’s charioteer in this war.

Seeing this, lord Krishna called for Sudarshna which was one of the deadliest weapons of that time and which never failed. As lord Krishna was about to launch Sudarshna in order to kill Bheeshma; the latter bowed to the lord and said it would be his greatest fortune to be killed by the lord himself. He then reminded the lord that he had promised not to use any weapon and if he killed him with Sudarshna, the lord would become guilty of breaking his promise.

Hearing this, lord Krishna said that in the present situation, only two options were available. If he kept his promise, his side would lose the war as Bheeshma alone was capable of winning it for his side, if Arjuna didn’t stop him. The second option was to break his promise and kill Bheeshma. This way, he would break his promise but at the same time, his side would win. The lord then said that since his side was the side representing the truth, it must win in order for justice to prevail.

Hence he said that under the present situation, the victory of truth and the prevalence of justice were much more important than his promise. Therefore, if it came to choose between his promise and victory of truth, he would choose the latter. Accordingly, he would kill Bheeshma with Sudarshna and he would not care if the world called him a promise breaker. The promise of an individual could not be more valuable than truth and justice. Hearing this, Arjuna got enlightened, he asked lord Krishna for forgiveness and he engaged in war against Bheeshma. This war was ultimately won by Pandvas.

There are two ways of looking at this incident. The way a native with high pride (ego) may look at it is that no matter what, if lord Krishna made a promise, he was bound to keep it, even if the war was lost. The second way is the way of a native with high conscience who finds this incident beautiful and inspiring. This is because lord Krishna is willing to sacrifice his promise and he’s even willing to face disgrace, in order to ensure universal wellbeing. When you’re the most respected native of your time, like lord Krishna, it becomes supremely important to keep your words.

However, lord Krishna chose to break his promise in favor of universal will, though doing so might have given some natives a reason to talk ill about him. Lord Krishna didn’t care about that and for him, universal wellbeing was much more important than his promise. Breaking a promise can certainly hurt your pride (ego) but only if you have one. Lord Krishna was all conscience and no pride (ego). Hence he always did what he felt was the right thing to do according to a given situation and he didn’t care whether it brought him good name or bad name.

Another interesting angle is that lord Krishna’s primarily declared objective for fighting this war was to help Pandvas as Arjuna chose him for help, instead of choosing his army. Accordingly; when Arjuna refused to kill Bheeshma; lord Krishna faced two options. The first option said he should keep his word though the Pandvas would lose the war in that case. The second option said he should help Pandvas win the war as that was what he was there for, though doing so would lead him to break his promise of not using any weapons.

If he chose the first option, it meant he attached more value to his word than to his primary objective as he’d keep his word and let Pandvas lose the war even though he was capable of winning it for them. On the other hand, if he chose the second option of helping Pandvas win this war by using a weapon; he’d help them in the deepest sense but then; he’d lose his promise.

I guess now it should be easy to understand that lord Krishna put more importance to his friend than to himself. That is why he chose to break his promise even if that resulted in disgrace; instead of choosing to keep his promise and let his friend’s side lose. Can you assess the greatness of this act as well as that of this character; who was willing to bear any loss in order to benefit his friend? This is what can happen when there is no pride (ego) as it is your pride (ego) alone which stops you from facing more than calculated losses, even when your loved ones are at stake.

Only a native with no pride (ego) at all, can even think of bringing disgrace to his image in order to serve a higher purpose; when he’s the most graceful native of his time. Even if you have a small percentage of pride (ego), you may not be able to do so because the stakes are very high as you’re the most respected native of your time and you’re going to engage in something which may cause serious damage to your image. Lord Krishna did many other such acts throughout his life; which suggested the absence of pride (ego). For instance, despite being a powerful king, he served as Arjuna’s charioteer in this war; when Arjuna was his friend as well as devotee; and not someone superior to him.

Hence a native with high pride (ego) may believe in the set of beliefs of ‘if you start something, you must finish it’ whereas a native with high conscience may translate this set of beliefs as ‘if you start something, give it your best’. It should be noted that giving it your best doesn’t mean sacrificing other important natives or duties in order to blindly pursue a particular native or mission. Giving it your best means trying your best while fulfilling all other duties undertaken by you before this mission or native; and not running away from them. This is because your commitment to those duties or natives came prior to your commitment to the present mission or native. Hence you should duly consider this fact that those duties must also be fulfilled.

Therefore, even this reason doesn’t justify your high cost engagement in the mission to complete your discovery. Likewise, your brain may give you a number of other reasons but they may all fail and hence let’s come to the real reason now. The real reason is that you’ve worked hard for this discovery and you want to be the one to claim all the credit for this discovery. If it is not finished in your lifetime and a scientist from a later generation finishes this project, he’ll claim major credit for this discovery and this is what your pride (ego) may not be willing to accept.

Since you’ve spent a long period of time on this project, your pride (ego) may be strongly attached to this project. Hence it encourages you to pay whatever cost is needed in order to ensure that you and only you finish this project. Provoked by your pride (ego), you may decide to pay such cost which may come in form of family life and many other things. If you’re lucky, you may one day finish this project, though you may have lost your family by then or you may have paid other prices which may be higher than the rewards given by this discovery.

So why may you be doing all this? Pride (ego) is the answer and you’re doing it to satisfy your pride (ego). The name and fame that this discovery may bring can take your pride (ego) to seventh heaven and this is why it keeps encouraging you to finish this project at any cost. There are no doubts that when you finish this project, the world may benefit and you may receive benefic energy in the form of thanks. However, your motive behind this discovery was not purely to benefit the world and your benefit was also involved. In fact, your benefit became primary as this project progressed.

This is how your pride (ego) can feed on your brain and this is how it can use it. Your pride (ego) can feed on the accomplishments made by your brain and it can feel proud when someone says that you’ve won a noble prize by virtue of your discovery. A noble prize is good but why are you so proud of it? Going even deeper, why was this prize initiated to start with? It was probably started so that the egos of natives with special abilities may fixate on this prize and they may do something good or very good for the mankind, in order to reach it.

It may sound strange but why do you need a prize otherwise? Yes, you’ve accomplished a great discovery and the whole world is benefitting from it. This is perfect till this point. But why do you want the whole world to know and remember that it is you who made this discovery? What is important, the benefits given by this discovery or the fact that you were the one who made this discovery? I guess the benefits are important for natives and the fact that you made this discovery is important for you. You see, how your pride (ego) can feed on you, even when you may be doing some very good things for other natives.

What happens in case you complete this discovery and you decide not to put your name on it? It means natives benefit from this discovery but they don’t know the name of the discoverer. You don’t need any rewards and you don’t need any recognition for it. Does it mean this discovery won’t work for natives, if such is the case? No, natives will still benefit the same through this discovery. So what changes then and why do you have the need to attach your name to this discovery? You know by now that it is your pride (ego) which wants to feed on the name and fame generated by this discovery, and there is no other reason.

Let’s now suppose you’re a scientist with high conscience and not the one with high pride (ego). You work on this project and you realize at a time that you may or may not be able to finish it in your lifetime, if you keep working on it in routine. You may also be sure of the fact that even if some work is left incomplete, the next scientist after you may very expected finish this project. You see two options from here.

The first option is to give as much extra time to this project as you can so that you may be able to finish this project in your lifetime. In order to do so, you may need to reduce the amount of time you may be giving to some of your other important commitments like to your family or even to your health and hence you may have to break those promises.

The second option is that you give this project your best and leave the rest for outside variables or so to say, for luck or nature to decide. Hence you work with maximum devotion and concentration on this project, but only for the time that you assign to your profession or may be for some extra time that you are able to manage without breaking other commitments. If you choose this option, you may or may not finish this project in your lifetime but the chances are high that it’ll be finished by someone after you and you’ll be able to fulfil other commitments of yours.

Therefore, if you’re a scientist with high conscience, you may very expected choose the second option. Hence you may give your best to this project while fulfilling all other commitments made by you and you may not care for the timing of results. You only have the right to engage in a karma and you don’t have the authority to control its fruits. Hence you should give your best to your karma and you should forget the rest. A native with high conscience may feel very happy, merely by the thought that he did his best to create something meaningful and this is all that may matter to him.

Imagine you are not able to complete this project but you die satisfied and happy as you’re a man of high conscience. The next scientist completes this discovery and he even claims majority of the credit for this discovery. What is it in this case that you may have lost? Let’s try to find out.

You’ve lived a happy life, you’ve given your best to this project while keeping all other commitments like family commitments and you’ve done justice to most things and most natives during your lifetime. It means you’ve marked benefic and meaningful Samskaras on your unconscious mind. The only thing you seem to have lost is due credit for the project. But what is due credit and how will you define it?

There are two criteria for assessing due credit. The first one is the system of nature which never makes mistakes and hence due karmic credit will be assigned to you for the amount of effort done by you towards this project. Therefore, the karmic equation as well as the equation of energy will be duly taken care of. The second criterion is the recognition given by other natives to you, for the constructive and meaningful work done by you. What is the value of this recognition and what do you gain if you get this recognition?

This recognition or credit is valued by your pride (ego) alone and neither the system of nature nor the fruits of your karmas depend on this recognition; in order to work out in the best possible ways. It means you’ll still receive all the karmic credit for your constructive work towards this project and nothing will be held back. It means that this recognition is not essential for your karmas to bear fruit and it is essential for your pride (ego) to feed on and grow.

Accordingly, you may miss out on a chance to feed your pride (ego), if you don’t receive recognition for this project in your lifetime. Hence the only thing you may lose is the chance to expand your pride (ego). As you can understand, a native with high conscience may not care much to feed his pride (ego) and hence he may do his best for anything, where this best complies with the already mentioned guidelines. On the other hand, a native with high pride (ego) may almost never be able to miss a chance to feed his pride (ego) and hence, he may do whatever it takes to receive this recognition, even if he has to break a number of his already made commitments.

You see, how different things may look when you assess them from the surface, compared to when you assess them from the bottom. On the surface or so to say, at the first sight, it may appear that the scientist who’s mad after his project and who sacrifices his family is better than the scientist who is not able to finish his project, but things are almost the opposite at the bottom. The scientist with high pride (ego) may be paying much higher price than his success is worthy of whereas the scientist with high conscience may achieve this success in the best possible way, without suffering losses on other fronts.

It should be noted that real success doesn’t lie in achieving your objective and it lies in your best effort for such objective. For example, if an athlete has the ability to finish 100 meters in 10 seconds at his best, let’s try three options here. The first option is that he’s given the goal of running 100 meters in 15 seconds and the number of seconds less than 15 doesn’t matter. It means whether he finishes in 10 seconds, 13 seconds or in 15 seconds is considered equally well. Suppose he runs and finishes this task in 12 seconds.

In the second option, he’s to run 100 meters in 10 seconds with the same condition that anything less than 10 seconds won’t give him extra credit. Suppose he tries and he finishes this task in exactly 10 seconds. In the third option, he’s to run 100 meters in 9 seconds. Suppose he tries and he finishes this task in 9.9 seconds. Let’s now look into these options and see what is happening.

In the first case, the athlete may seem to have succeeded but he’s not. This is because he had the ability to finish this task in 10 seconds and hence 10 seconds is his best in this case. Therefore, finishing the task in 12 seconds means he may have met the challenge given to him but he’s not given his best. In the second case, the athlete has given his best and at the same time, he’s succeeded also. In the third case, he’s given his best but he’s not been able to meet the challenge given to him.

If you look at these results from the surface, the first two results look like successes and the third one looks like a failure. However at the bottom, the first attempt is a failure whereas the second and third attempts are successful. Even between them, the third one is more successful. This is because in the first attempt, he was not able to deliver his best, in the second attempt he delivered his best and in the third attempt, he was even able to improve his best. Hence the third attempt is the most successful attempt in reality, as it brought improvement in his performance. The second attempt is also good as it helped him bring out his already accomplished best performance.

Let’s take a different challenge now. Each one of two natives has a big basket tied on his back and they’re given the challenge to collect as many mangos from a tree, as they can and store them in their baskets. Each mango carries one point and the native having more points at the end of this competition will win. In addition to that, there is a mango on this tree at a difficult location and it carries ten points. Each basket already has 20 mangos in it, which also carry one point each. The competition starts and both of them start climbing this mango tree, with baskets on their backs.

Suppose the first native is lured by the extra points assigned to the specific mango and he decides to get it. Since the time is limited, he aims for that mango first. He faces difficulties and he even fails a number of times, but he finally succeeds and he collects this mango as well as three other mangos before the time is finished. However, in order to achieve this difficult task, he forgets to take care of the mangos in his basket as all his focus is fixed on the difficult to get mango; and he drops 15 out of the already given 20 mangos. Hence he finishes at 18 points, 13 points for the mangos collected by him and 5 points for the 5 mangos which are left out of the 20 mangos he had at the beginning of this task.

Suppose the second native doesn’t care about any specific mango and all he cares for is to collect whatever comes his way, while making sure that he doesn’t lose the already collected mangos. Hence he looks for the mangos which are easier to collect and he doesn’t fix himself on any particular mangos. As the time reaches its limit, suppose he is able to collect 15 mangos from the tree and he drops none of the already collected mangos. Hence he finishes at a score of 35.

Though the first native has collected that specific mango, he’s missed out on a number of other mangos, he’s also dropped 15 mangoes from his basket and hence he’s lost the competition. The second native understood well from the start that the objective of the competition was to score more points and this is all that mattered. Hence he kept achieving all around success, which means he kept availing the opportunities to collect all the mangos which came his way and he also made sure that he didn’t lose the mangos he already had. Hence he scored almost the double than the first native.

The approach of the first native can be compared to pride (ego) and the approach of the second native can be compared to conscience. Pride (ego) ignores all other mangos in order to achieve one specific mango, which means it ignores all other things in order to achieve a specific thing. Hence it may finally succeed in getting that thing but it may end up even behind the starting line. It means your pride (ego) may take you backwards in spiritual evolution and you may end up facing more jobs to do, by the time it has achieved its target.

As you can see, the first native has ended up with 18 points whereas he started with 20. This is what pride (ego) can do to you. Though you may actually lose, it may keep telling you that getting a particular mango is more important and even if you lose some of the already collected mangos in order to get that particular mango, it is fine. You may get that mango in the end, but at the cost of many other mangos and at the cost of finishing behind the starting line.

Looking at your conscience, it may tell you that the first thing you need to ensure is that you don’t lose the already collected mangos in order to collect new ones. This is because your conscience understands that it is equally or even more important, not to lose things you’ve already gained, while trying to gain new things. Hence your conscience helps you balance your focus in a way that you pay due attention to collecting new mangos as well as to preserving the already collected mangos. Therefore, it helps you collect 15 new mangos and at the same time, it helps you avoid losing any mangos that you already have.

Though the pride (ego) of the first native may certainly convince him that he’s collected the one special mango and that is what matters the most; and it can make him feel like a winner even when he’s actually lost, he’s only fooling himself. This is because the mangos that you already have are also equally important or even more important than the mangos you’re trying to have. Hence your goals should be set and pursued in a way that you don’t have to lose what you’ve already achieved, in order to gain new things.

It means there is no sense in finishing your scientific project if you end up hurting as well as losing majority of important natives in your life and you also face other losses. Though you may think you’ve achieved success; your pride (ego) has pushed you behind the starting line in reality. As a result, you’ll be born again to settle the karmic accounts with your wife, your children and other natives as you’ve broken the promises made to them and you have to pay for these karmas. You may have finished this project but in order to finish it, you have left a number of other projects unfinished, when you could easily have finished them.

Finishing a project at the cost of spoiling a number of other equally or even more important projects is something that only a native with high pride (ego) may do and a native with high conscience may never fall for it. This is because conscience helps you evaluate things and natives as they are whereas pride (ego) can highly inflate the value of a particular native or thing it gets attached to. Hence in this case, your pride (ego) may tell you that all other commitments taken together are much smaller than the commitment made to this project and hence you must fulfil this commitment, even if all other commitments are broken.

Your conscience on the other hand, helps you see this picture as it is and hence you do your best for the project and leave the rest, as getting involved in it beyond a point can disturb the harmony in your life, thereby restricting your spiritual growth. Accordingly, you choose to focus on the effort, instead of focusing on the result, which is another prominent difference between pride (ego) and conscience. Pride (ego) will always get attached to the result whereas conscience will always encourage you to focus on the effort and remain unattached from the result.

Hence a native driven by pride (ego) may see no fun in the effort and he may be interested in results only. The results as you can understand are never guaranteed in most cases as there are a number of variables beyond your control, which affect such results. Hence one such native is only inviting troubles in the long run and nothing else.

All of us have certain specific amount of energy available with us, though this amount may vary in case of different individuals. For each and everything we do, we need energy. Hence more is the number of things you’re doing at a time; less may be the amount of energy available to all of them or to some of them, depending on your focus. The concept of how your unconscious mind sends energy to your fields of interest has already been explained earlier in this book.

When you engage in a specific karma, you have two ways of doing it. You can either focus on the fruits or you can focus on the karma. If you choose to focus on the fruits, your unconscious mind attaches a significant part of the available energy to the fruits and accordingly, not all the energy is focused on the karma. It should be noted that the fruit can only be reached through karma and there is no other way. Hence more you focus on karma, better are the chances of getting the fruit at the earliest, because most of your energy is going to your karma, which certainly improves the quality of your karma.

As the quality of your karma improves, the quality of the fruit also improves. However, if you get attached to the fruits more than the karma, you may not be able to produce high quality karmas and hence the quality of the fruit may also drop. Therefore, the natives who focus on their karmas more than the results are expected to get better results than the ones who focus more on the results. Isn’t it interesting how you may get better results if you don’t care about them much? This is due to the reason that the amount of energy you need to focus on results reduces the amount of energy available for focusing on karma and so the quality of karma drops.

Taking a practical example, if you’re a native driven by pride (ego) and you engage in acts of kindness with the ambition of becoming a billionaire when you may already be a millionaire, this is what may happen. You’re doing charities and with each act of charity, your hope for breaking the barrier of billions at the earliest may become stronger and your patience may become weaker. This is because you may think that you’ve done another good karma and hence your objective should be even closer. Though you may be right in thinking so, it can make you anxious.

As your primary focus is on becoming a billionaire and the acts of kindness for you are only the media through which you can achieve your objective, you may not be able to draw much pleasure from such acts. While engaging in all these acts, you’re focused on results and not on the acts. Hence your happiness depends on result and if this result is delayed which may often happen due to a number of reasons, you may start feeling anxious, restless, impatient and even unhappy with the passage of time. It is possible that after some time or after a long period of time, you may even stop engaging in acts of kindness.

This is because you may think that such acts may not be capable of bringing the result desired by you as a lot of time has already passed without the result coming to you. Hence you may lose faith in acts of kindness and you may quit doing them altogether. If that happens, you may also start having regrets and malefic feelings as you may think that you’ve lost a big amount of money towards the acts of kindness and you start considering such money as lost money. Hence you end up being sad instead of being happy. You see, how your own mindset can bring you sadness even from the best types of acts?

On the other hand, if you’re a native with high conscience and your primary objective behind all such acts of kindness is to help the needy ones and feel happy in the process, you’re blessed right from the first moment. This is because you start helping the needy ones, your help brings smiles on their faces and that smile fills your face as well as your heart with smile too. Hence you start getting happiness right from the first moment and you don’t have to wait at all. This is because your happiness is dependent on your karmas and not on their results. Since you can almost always control your karmas and you can almost never control their results, you’ve learnt the art of being happy.

Consciously or unconsciously, you’ve developed a tendency of drawing happiness from the karma itself, instead of waiting for such happiness to come through results. Hence no one can stop you from being happy as you’ve now discovered the biggest secret of happiness. Another good thing is that since you’re drawing happiness from your karmas, you don’t focus much on their results. As that happens, you’re not anxious about the quantum of rewards or their timing and hence you don’t feel impatient. This way, you keep engaging in more and more acts of kindness and you don’t expect results. This is what is called Nishkaam Karma; a karma without the wish for result and this is what you’ve achieved now.

In deepest sense, Nishkaam karma means learning the art of drawing all the pleasure from the karma itself, rather than depending on its result for such pleasure. When you learn and master this art, you know the secret to everlasting happiness and joy; as all you have to do is to start doing what you enjoy doing. For example, if you’re a very good dancer, there’re two ways you may try to get pleasure through the art of dancing.

In the first case, you dance and you expect praise from other natives who may be watching you perform. It should be noted that your happiness is now dependent on the reactions of other natives and hence it becomes dependent on the fruit of your karma of dancing. If majority of natives praise you, you may feel happy and if not, you may feel sad though you may have given your best to this piece of dance. Hence you depend on the result of your karma to feel happy and this is what can bring problems. If you don’t receive praise for a long period of time, you may even disengage from dancing as you lose patience and you see no benefit in it.

In the second case, you like dancing and you dance only in order to feel happy. Your happiness comes from the dance itself and it is not dependent on the results. It means you get all absorbed while dancing and more you dance, more you enjoy. By the time you’re finished with a piece of dance, you’re filled with pleasure and you don’t want anything else, like the reactions of natives who may be watching you. Your happiness in this case is dependent on your act instead of being dependent on the result. Hence you can almost always control your happiness in this case as you can start dancing whenever you feel like.

It should be noted that in case of natives of second type, since the focus is on the acts and not on the results; the results are better or much better than those witnessed by the natives of the first type. This is because these natives don’t get impatient or restless to get happiness as they’re getting it right from the start. Hence they keep getting more and more happiness from their acts and as they do so, their acts start getting better and better. It’s a simple fact that more you enjoy doing a thing, more you keep doing it and better you become at it.

Hence these natives keep enjoying their acts, they keep engaging in them in order to enjoy even more and they keep improving as all their focuses are targeted at their acts, which bring improvements. If one such native is a dancer who enjoys dancing, his dance may become better and better; attracting more appreciation from natives who watch his performances. As a result, rewards are earned earlier and at the same time, in higher quanta. Isn’t it interesting that more you run after results, more distant they become; and more you focus on the path to results than the results themselves, closer they get.

This is why while setting on a journey; you should develop affinity with the path and not with the destination. By doing so, you start loving the journey itself; more than the destination. Hence you start enjoying your journey instead of looking at it like a boring medium which leads to your destination. Accordingly, your journey becomes a happy one and your destination reaches earlier because more you’re focused on your journey, faster it is covered. This is because all your energy is undivided and focused on the journey; and so it is covered at the earliest. As soon as your focus shifts to destination, you start facing problems in your journey as you’re not giving it your undivided attention which is now divided between journey and destination.

For example, if you wish to help a group of hungry kids, you may do so in many ways. Let’s take a look at a couple of them. You may have a mindset that helping natives will bring you happiness and hence you’re willing to donate. You see these hungry kids; you give them some money which may be sufficient to buy food and you walk away. You may not enjoy this act much because your focus is on the reward for this act and not on the act itself. Hence you may not get the most out of this act.

Let’s consider the same act when you’re a native who draws pleasure from such acts of kindness, instead of waiting for results. In this case, you may take these kids with you to a nearby place which offers good food or you may bring such food to them, you may accompany them and you may all enjoy this food together. All your focus in this case is on doing your best for these kids. Hence you enjoy this food with them or you simply accompany them while they eat food, you see them become happy and you get an instant reward in the form of satisfaction and happiness.

As your happiness is now dependent on the act itself, you may do it in the best possible way as you know that better this act is performed, happier you’ll feel. Hence you may try to create the best possible atmosphere for this entire act so that the kids may become very happy and their true happiness may pass on to you also. This way, you end up feeling happy in the act itself and you don’t depend on the reward. But this is not all you get and there’s more. In order to obtain maximum happiness from this act, you’ve done a lot more than you did in the first case where you merely donated money to hungry kids.

In this case, you may have spent the same amount of money, but you’ve offered yourself also at the disposal of these kids. You’ve spared your time, you’ve offered your services in a sincere way and you’ve tried to ensure that the kids are benefitted in the best possible way. Hence your rewards may be faster and bigger than those in the first case. It’s interesting that though you don’t expect rewards in this case and you enjoy the act itself, the rewards become bigger and faster. This is what Nishkaam karma can do for you; as it teaches you do draw all the pleasure from the karma itself, rather than depending on the result.

 

Himanshu Shangari