The success stories of ambitious people: Be careful! || Acharya Prashant, at BITS Goa (2023)

Acharya Prashant

Video Information: 12.01.23, BITS, Goa  Context: ~ How to turn our life into a Success story? ~ How to be successful in life? ~ What is the reality of celebrities? ~ Why celebrities commit suicide? ~ How important is ambition? ~ What is celebrities' real life like? ~ Are we being fooled by glamour?  ~ Want to study a course you don't like?  Music Credits: Milind Date

Transcript

00:00My question was regarding ambition. What is ambition? And how do you, you know, be ambitious?

00:09How do you create that force in you that will help you, you know, help you tackle every

00:15failure in life? Because you hear about, you hear about a lot of so called success stories,

00:22and you see that they had a lot of pitfalls in life, they had a lot of hurdles that they

00:26faced, but it was that one ambition that helped them reach where they are. So how do you develop

00:30that force within you?

00:31We'll, we'll take that. It's a very, very important question. It's a life changing question.

00:45You know, you have your own life to live, first of all. And nobody can be fulfilled

00:59reaching a place somebody else has reached. You're born differently. What fulfills one

01:10cannot fulfill the other. What's more, you do not even know whether the other is fulfilled.

01:20Are you getting? You have someone in front of you, who's touting himself as a success

01:27story. I am a success story, right? I had ambitions. And fueled by ambition, I braved

01:38all the challenges in life. And then I have reached this particular place. So I'm a superstar.

01:46Come on, follow me. I present myself as a role model, right? How do you know, first

01:53of all, that he has really reached any place of any worth? He's showing you what he needs

02:01to show you. The video that you are watching is a heavily curated and edited one. Did you

02:11know that? All kinds of filters and edits. So much has been put into it. The video that

02:26I'm talking of is the person's life story. How do you know how he is internally? And

02:35if all your role models have indeed reached worthy places, why do you hear of so many

02:40cases of suicides among those people? Why? And when they die by suicide, it makes big

02:53news. It makes big news precisely because so many people consider them their role models, right?

02:59Now if he was indeed worthy of being a role model, why suicide? Why so many other things?

03:11Why tax evasion? Why so many other kinds of crimes? Please, he was a role model charged of

03:30murder, black money, money laundering, Hawala, drug abuse, rape, illicit dealings. I'm not

03:50alleging that all those you consider your role models indulge in these things. I'm asking you,

03:57what do you know about his inner life? Can you? Being a celebrity, will he allow the inner

04:07details to ever emerge out? He is living off his reputation, correct? His reputation is his earning.

04:18Will he allow his reputation to be tainted? Then how can you be so ignorant, so gullible that you

04:25watch a video or read a story and think of it as true? Did you publish that video? Who published

04:33that video? Come on. He published that video. So he is showing you what he wants to show you.

04:39He is doing what he wants to do. Why do you have to believe in what he is doing? Get that thing

04:52off your mind. When something fancy comes in front of you on the screen or somewhere, you just feel

04:59compelled and the visuals and the audios and the narrative that just overpowers you. Does it not?

05:07Like the eyes, they are gone. They are no more yours. The screen has captivated the eyes. The

05:14narrative has enchanted the mind. It's all gone. You are enslaved and can you question the screen?

05:24Can you question the screen? Can you pause the video and say, well, I have a question to ask.

05:31Can you do that? You can't. Even if that fellow is speaking live, chances are he will not accept

05:40live questions. Even if he does accept a live question, chances are he will not tolerate cross-questioning.

05:50He will not allow the real thing to emerge. So there is no need as young people, for you all,

06:00to just fall for the stories. They are stories. They are very very carefully written stories.

06:08Every single aspect of that story is minutely manufactured before the story is released.

06:22Now ambition. Basically desire, right? Small desire you do not call as ambition. When the

06:35desire is big enough, you start calling it as an ambition, right? You want a glass of water,

06:48a little tumbler, you would call it, you know, I want it. You want a bigger jug, you probably call

06:59it a desire. You want desire. You want an entire tank, that's an ambition. Not as changed. Is there

07:09a fundamental difference? Is there a fundamental difference? You want a little plot of land for

07:15yourself, you call it, you call it desire, you know. You want to win over an entire country,

07:25which itself is a plot of land, a bigger plot of land, you call it. So that's desire, simple desire.

07:32And you know, where do all desires come from? Your animalistic biological conditioning. Have

07:39you seen dogs fight over their territories? Have you seen? Have you seen how one dog gets

07:45bitterly furious when another dog encroaches over its territory? And have you seen how they

07:53mark their territories? They just raise one leg and the stuff that they do is actually a territory

07:59marker. That's to indicate to the other dogs, this is the border, the international line.

08:09Don't breach into my sovereignty. But then a great king captures 10 lakh square kilometers

08:25and you say, oh, the great, mahan, he is doing what dogs have always done, capturing territory.

08:32That's ambition. Amplifying your animal nature, that's what. What do ambitious people want?

08:44Please tell me. More and more of the material, right? That's what animals also want.

08:52What's there in that? What's there in that? You have a life to live, you are very young.

09:04Can you work for something rather worthy? Can your energy come from love rather than ambition?

09:19And when you are very ambitious, obviously that inspires energy within, right? If you have desire

09:28for something, you feel energized. Have you seen that? And when you are ambitious, you feel all

09:34the more energized. It's just that all that energy is very cyclical. One moment you feel motivated,

09:42the other moment you feel demotivated and then you run towards some motivation pill.

09:48But anyway, a lot of energy comes from ambition. If you are ambitious, you will find spurts in energy.

09:59Can you live in the energy that comes from love? That's the question. Ambition says,

10:10I'll be fulfilled when I achieve that. Can you spend your life doing something

10:20that you do in fulfillment itself rather than targeting an imaginary fulfillment 20 years later?

10:32I'm starting up. Here's my new venture.

10:36Two years it will break even, if I'm lucky. Six years later, IPO.

10:48And then two years after that, I'll exit. And when I'll exit, I'll have lots of money.

11:00I'll sell off my shares. And then I'll be fulfilled.

11:10Is it possible instead to choose something to do that keeps you fulfilled all the time?

11:19That's what I'm talking of as energy of love. Is it possible?

11:25We have to get into that question. There are no easy answers.

11:30But that's a question that you must ask yourself.

11:37These are the golden years of your life, right?

11:41Do you want to spend these years doing something you cannot even tolerate doing but

11:48still continue doing because you feel desirous of the future? Do you want to do that?

11:59Think of your courses. How many courses have you in a semester? Six?

12:04Nobody loves all the six courses. At least I never did.

12:10How do you live through the courses you don't love?

12:12It was very difficult for me. I don't know whether it's easy for you.

12:19Don't you have attendance requirement or something? Okay, lucky.

12:2675% attendance requirement and 75% means 75%.

12:34Living through the semester was not an easy job.

12:36Because it's just impossible to appreciate all the courses that came your way.

12:51But that was a requirement, right?

12:56Once you are out of the campus, there are no requirements. There is freedom.

13:01Do you want to spend your life, let's say the next 5 years, 10 years, as if you are enrolled in a course?

13:14You are just waiting to come to an end.

13:19Let the semester end. Let me be relieved of this particular course, even if with a C or D grade.

13:26That's how most people spend their lives. They just have no relationship with the work they are doing.

13:33All that they have is ambition, desires, no love.

13:43Tell me, if you love your work, would you ever think of selling off your company?

13:48What about your role models? They are all serial entrepreneurs, are they not?

13:55If you really love what you have created, what you have brought up,

14:02would you simply sell it off? Would you do that, please?

14:08Would you do that?

14:09Is there any love in what they are doing? I am asking you.

14:12There is just opportunism and that opportunism gets them money. But what does money get you?

14:25That's not the way to live. That just leaves you very, very poor.

14:31And that's what matters. And you become a curse, not only to yourself, but a bane to entire humanity

14:38because you earn a lot of money and that lot of money is now in the hands of a foolish person.

14:47So, what will that foolish man do with that money?

14:50Not just consume, destroy, destroy. He'll fund all the right kinds of, all the wrong kinds of things.

15:01He'll buy a living enterprise and turn it dead. Do you have a recent experience of that?

15:08Destroy. He'll fund all the right kinds of, all the wrong kinds of things.

15:15He'll buy a living enterprise and turn it dead. Do you have a recent example?

15:24That's what happens when a foolish man gets to have a lot of money.

15:29The entire planet is destroyed. And because money can give you a lot of reach,

15:35all your nonsensical concepts will become household things.

15:42You start saying, well, climate change is not a problem at all.

15:46Well, the earth actually needs more kids. Come on, go reproduce.

15:52What if the earth is burnt to ashes? We'll go and colonize another planet.

16:04Are you getting it?

16:12Ambition is a very stale thing. It's a dead thing.

16:20Do not forget where it comes from. It comes from your past in the jungle.

16:25You are conditioned to be desirous and social forces just encourage you to be even more desirous

16:41of the same things that you have been wanting since a million years.

16:45Same things. Let's do something new as young people.

16:53How do you want to live the same life that your ancestors in the jungle were living?

17:02The monkey wanted a fruit, you want an orchard. Is that fundamentally different thing? Please,

17:09they were running after female monkeys then and even today you are running after the female monkey, maybe in a Ferrari.

17:21And the female monkey was

17:23attracted towards the alpha monkey then. Even today the female monkey is attracted towards the alpha monkey.

17:32Who is the alpha monkey today? The one with the Ferrari and the money bag.

17:39Can we live fresh lives, new lives?

17:45Or do you want to continue that same animalistic tradition?

17:49Can we live fresh lives, new lives or do you want to continue that same animalistic tradition?

17:57Can we live fresh lives, new lives or do you want to continue that same animalistic tradition?

18:11Then tell yourself that you are free to not to believe, to not to be influenced.

18:23Freedom must be your most important value.

18:36Are you getting it?

18:41The world wants to steal away the most important thing that you have which is freedom of mind.

18:52Liberty of consciousness. Do not allow the world to do that and the world is not just outside of you,

19:00also inside of you. Your own thoughts and emotions, be very cautious of them. They are not yours.

19:09They belong to the world. They belong to this body and this body belongs to the world.

19:15This body is a heavily conditioned body.

19:18This brain is a part of this body and is equally heavily conditioned.

19:23So if an emotion arises in the brain or a thought wave is there,

19:30do not just quickly accept it or identify with it. Know that it is coming from the jungle

19:37or it is coming from the marketplace. It is not mine. So I'll be cautious.

19:48I'll be cautious. It is not mine. These emotions are not mine. Even the dog has these emotions.

19:55How can these emotions be mine?

20:01Look at dogs and cats that will tell you who you are. All of us are just dogs and cats.

20:07There is hardly anything in human life that does not belong to the life of a dog or a cat.

20:14Then how can this life be ours?

20:20Which means that no life has been given to us by our physical or social tradition.

20:30They do not give us any life. Life has to be created afresh.

20:35Life has to be created afresh. You have to write a new script of your own. The old script is not

20:45yours. It's a borrowed thing and it's a very bad and dangerous thing. Do not live by that script.

20:57Is it making sense? I do not expect it to make much sense, but still.

21:05Ask yourself these basic questions. Are you doing anything that is fundamentally

21:15different from what your grandparents were doing? Fundamentally different, not just superficially.

21:20You want money? You want money? Your grandpa also wanted money. How are you different?

21:34What's new?

21:50He also wanted more money compared to somebody else.

21:54Yeah. What's new? Yeah, that might change, right? That's true. That's true.

22:10Yes, that can change. Obviously, we are not saying that newness is not possible. It is

22:15definitely possible. Definitely a new life can be lived. Definitely, but not if you do not discard

22:23the old life. And you cannot discard it if you do not know that it is old. We keep thinking of

22:31the old as the, we keep thinking of all the old stuff as brand new. Oh, I've fallen in love.

22:41I'm the first man in the world to fall in love. It's happening all over the place, son.

22:53I've fallen in love for the nth time in life, not the first time, right? What's new?

23:01Can we have something new?

23:23Oh

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