I rarely find individuals who are endowed with both of these simultaneously. What dissatisfies me in the first type is that there seems to be a certain kind of complacency and a lack of drive/thrill of life. Spiritual seekers often come under this category — they have some purity, but this purity is mostly accompanied by a lack of emotional and vital intensity, as well as a certain kind of tamas.
The second type has a lot of energy, enthusiasm, etc. but often with it come tendencies which appall me. I have a friend who is very ambitious and radiates charisma, but then he had more than several dozen women in the last 1 year alone. And yet, it seems like the kinds of people who have the power to accomplish big things are usually also those with these kinds of deviant traits. Moreover, sometimes it is impossible to relate to such people on any intellectual topic.
Can you please explain why I feel drawn by both these very opposite types of people? Might it be that I aspire for both, purity as well as power and that I need to work on developing both of these aspects?
Yes a combination of intellectual refinement and vital ambition is generally not found because the full development of mental faculties require a certain mastery over the vital elements. Humanity develops by mastering the vital elements which are largely an extension of our animal past. Of course I am speaking of the true intellectual thinker who reflects and discerns, not the degree holder who is well informed and plays with information and opinions passing them off as ideas. True intellectual development requires a certain impersonal dispassionate disposition. The true thinker prefers solitude over crowd. He gets his high through insights and ideas rather than outer conquest and accumulation of wealth and power. He believes in ethical and moral conduct and hence he displays a certain degree of self-restraint. He is driven by sattwa.
The spiritual man is still higher. He evolves by mastery of the rational intellect by a higher intuitive spiritual intelligence. He shuns even the company of the thinker who is simply playing with thought and believes in scholarly debate and discussions. The spiritual man rises beyond the thinker. He goes beyond the moral, ethical norms and acts on the basis of subjective standards which he has evolved rather than acts of social approval.
The ambitious man is still below the intellectual thinker, let alone the spiritual seeker. He is driven by rajas and hence prone to speed, rushing through things rather than being calm and steady. He is a go-getter, an outer achiever, a man who believes in expansion of his personal empire by outer accumulation and quantity rather than quality.
The tamasic man is still below. He is closest to the animal but with added capacities due to the mind. Food, sex, sleep, fun, extreme sensations such as alcohol, drugs, violent ways of life or a dull mechanical routine is his way of life.
You are possibly going through a transition from the rajasic to the sattwic type hence the attraction towards both. The direction one aught to take is obvious. The go-getter is your past that is clinging and possibly will need to be exhausted through experience. The sattwic cultured and refined as well as the spiritually awakened is your future attracting you and will sooner or later pull you there. Once the evolutionary pressure starts one cannot be satisfied with the past form that one is being pushed from within to overstep.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
