For making progress one requires a clear purpose, a goal, which will give one a sense of direction. Unless we decide where to go, we will not reach anywhere. We will spend our lives like driftwood tossed around by every wave on the seas of life. Setting of a goal is thus essential for our progress. The first step on the path to progress is to have a clear goal set in our mind. We must be clear about our destination. Setting of goals is clearly the first step . . . . A step which will begin our thousand-mile journey.
When we look at the goals set by people, we find that most of them centre around amassing wealth and material things, getting education and acquiring power. If one examines these things, whether it be wealth, education or power, one finds that these by themselves are neither good nor bad. The use to which these are put determines whether they are good or bad. The second step that we have to take is to ensure that what we acquire is for a good purpose and put to a good use. A shloka in Sanskrit explains this :
Education is for needless debates and arguments, wealth for becoming proud and arrogant, and power for harassing others . . . . that is what an evil person thinks. But truly, education is for real knowledge, for wisdom, wealth for donating, and power for protecting the weak.
Thus whatever we desire as a goal must have a noble purpose attached to it. It must be for good of ourselves and also others. The moment one understands and accepts this, the goals become far more meaningful. They cease to be selfish. In the pursuit of such goals one finds that happiness is a by-product. Happiness just starts flowing in one’s life.
I am not talking of goals like taking sanyasa or laying down one’s life for the country. Such heroic goals are not meant for ordinary people like us. But even in our life, as a householder, a student, a worker, or just anybody, there are numerous opportunities to wipe a tear, to restore a smile and be of some help to people around us.
The second step then, is to ensure that whatever we achieve as our goal is put to good use, a noble use.
But then we come to the third and the final step. It is not difficult to set goals and put them to good use. The third step, which is the most difficult one, is to do good deeds without any pride. This is well expressed in the Bhajan ‘Vaishnav Jana’ by Narsinha Mehta :
“Vaishnava jana to tehne kahiye . . . . . .
Para dukkhe upkaar kare thoye
This is a very difficult test to pass. I have been trying and failing again and again. Yes. A keen desire to help others is always there, but a feeling of ‘doership’ persists. A word of praise gladdens my heart, and non-recognition leaves me with an empty feeling !
I am attempting that there should not be any sense of pride. After all what I am doing is only my duty and natural obligation to return something to the society from which I have received countless benefits. May be some day I will succeed. Till then the struggle continues. I would end with an excerpt from a letter :
“I am glad I was born, glad I suffered so, glad I did make big blunders, glad to enter peace. Whether this body will fall and release me or I enter into freedom in the body, the old man is gone, gone for ever, never to come back again !
Behind my work was ambition, behind my love was personality, behind my purity was fear. Now they are vanishing and I am adrift.”
Can one believe that these are the words of Swami Vivekananda, written shortly before his death ? No wonder the third step of doing away with a sense of doership is not easy for people like us ! However one must not give up. Some goals are so worthy, its glorious even to fail.
