Excessive use of logic itself becomes a problem. The joy comes from the heart. When we shut the heart in what we are doing, then we lose the joy. Overperfection itself closes the heart since the mind is obsessed with doing everything right, making no mistakes. One should learn to relax, not be overcritical about people, things or oneself. It is an art to accept life even while striving to make it better.ย
Q2. I have many self-doubts. Even when I sit to identify the mistakes in me to improve my efficiency, those self-doubts pop up create a hindrance. How do I handle this?
This is exactly what I am referring to above. Why are you so afraid of making mistakes? Instead of that focus on how to make things better.
Q3. How can I choose my actual career goal? The condition I am in at present is pushing me into a rat race, like doing engineering for 4 years from a tier 3 college.ย The college doesn’t teach creative thinking and doesn’t give time to think about creative thinking due to its assignments, exams and attendance criteria. They make only rats who will work for the MNCs to destroy the beautiful environment; in the name of aptitude, they are producing robot humans.ย
Creative thinking is not taught in colleges. In fact, it cannot be taught. It is an error to believe that it is a college that shapes and decides our destiny. By the time we enter the college, we are already shaped a lot. In any case, the importance of school and college is overemphasised. Except for the first few years, it is we who ultimately shape ourselves and the future follows how we have shaped ourselves. Instead of worrying about the college, think about what you want to develop in yourself and work towards it.
Q4. In one video, you have said that pain in life means opportunities and you don’t explain how to be joyful in that time. The video TH630.ย
Joy comes by striving for progress. There is a difference between progress and achievement, just as there is a difference between excellence and ambition. Progress, pursuit of excellence, gives us joy. Ambition turns us overcritical and unhappy.ย
Q5. As I am I child everyone say to me to focus on study and the pattern of study in india is so bad it never provide practical knowledge and not promote projects building form form the starting (schools) but i am intrested researches of different things like I read some reaserch related quantum physics , geography , astronomy in all these I am intrested but this is not my core branch in engineering and i cant give this time so much
That is not true. It is again blaming the outer circumstances. Indian students do well everywhere. How could they do well if education was so bad? It is a question of attitude.
You say you are a child. In that case, you have to lay a good foundation first by studying well. Research comes later. You will always get enough time to pursue different interests. But right now you need to be on your true feet and earn an honest livelihood for yourself. Rest is for later.
One more topic fascinates me and that is about Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. When you talk about them, I like it so much, but as I don’t understand it when I read. What should I do ??
Right now, just read some of their simple compilations from The Mother, like The Sunlit Path, Rays of Light, etc.
Q6. Is striving for the divine for getting joy is selfishness?
It is a kind of selfishness. Joy comes naturally as we progress towards the Divine. It is not something to be asked separately.
I had a request: please make the video on giving detailed answers for students like me who have no direction. To give them the right direction.ย
There are plenty of videos for students. But of course, different students have different questions. Hence this platform.ย
Q7. What is right and what is wrong? Please tell what the mother said and what you understood from what the Mother told.ย
There is no fixed right and wrong. It changes as we evolve depending upon the stage of our development, our physical and psychological age, etc. In a general sense, selfishness, thinking only about oneself, is the root of wrong. Forgetting oneself in service of the world or God is right. So too, progressing so as to bring out one’s latent possibilities is right, whereas thinking only about one’s defects or others’ defects is wrong.
Q8. Someone told me to concentrate between both of your eyes on the head and remember the mother ….. Earlier (a year ago), I felt good after doing that.ย Should I continue? And how does it work?
You can do it for short periods of time, 10 to 15 minutes twice a day, if it comes naturally to you.
All questions are mandatory for me because I feel I am stuck somewhere.ย How to not get affected by things and situations means that, as I am a human at a human level while practicing for going into higher consciousness (higher consciousness means at least above these human ego desires and greed), many hurdles come in our life, like many situations created by the divine for making us strong and capable.
It is by focusing upon and forgetting oneself in the work that one stops being affected by others. Being affected by others means giving them too much importance. Instead of giving importance to people, one should give importance to the work at hand and the goal before oneself.ย
Since everyone is evolving through the situation, conditions come in their life. So how can I act? How can I determine what is my highest and go to that highest before doing any action or saying any words . How to be that conscious while being in the material world and doing the things (karma) of the material world; how to deal with material world people ( means I could be one of them but want to try to grow out of that ).
One does not evolve through situations. It is by taking the right attitude and focusing on one’s goal that one evolves.
Please guide me on how I can determine where I am; there are certain drawbacks in me. How can I find them and how can I be conscious of them every time?ย
Please do not think about defects. It will not help. Think about possibilities and what you truly want.
I have read in the rays of light or somewhere else that the Mother, and I am telling you what I understand, soย do whatever you are doing in the material world (keeping in mind that this work is what I am doing for the divine). When it is your time, when you are capable enough to do the Mother’s work, you will be called.
Yes. Absolutely so.
If yes, so how can one be joyful at that time? The actual problem is that the mind keeps creating situations and things, making them complex; please tell me something that I can concentrate on at a point and do the same thing (by keeping in mind that I am serving the divine)
The first thing is to ask the mind to be quiet and focus instead on the work at hand, on doing it well. A restless mind wastes energy and doesn’t get anywhere. Teach the mind to be quiet by use of a mantra and to concentrate upon the work at hand.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
