Ambition - the burning need to achieve || Acharya Prashant (2015)

Acharya Prashant: We want to look at ‘ambition’. So, as I enter, I see that we have been singing Kabir; Kabir talking about achievement, about ambition, about greed and desire and he seems to be taking a clear position, it’s unmistakable. Let us not leave it ambiguous, there is a sense of condemnation in what he is saying. And then there are others who would point to the virtues of ambition, who would say it:,”Ambition is the motivator of human progress that the heights that human civilization seems to be touching today have happened because of the desire to change”.

We have had a lot of this: “Ambition is ‘good’ versus ambition is ‘bad'” kind of a debate. We could approach it a little differently. We could ask ourselves – “What is ambition?”, instead of asking:”Is ambition ‘good’ ,or, is ambition ‘bad’?”, which is all quite childish, we could ask ourselves, “What is ambition?”. But, as I proceed to take that line it occurs to me a lot has been said in that context as well.

All of us here are learned people, whom I suppose have an interest in the subtleties of life and they would have surely thought over this question: ‘What is ambition?’. So what do we do, we could take the same beaten path again, try to see ‘What is ambition’, go into it, the restlessness of the mind, the desire to reach somewhere and such things. Or, I am prompted to ask a more fundamental question, ‘Is ambition?’, not ‘Is ambition ‘good’ or is ambition ‘bad’?’ not even ‘What is ambition’? Simply-‘Is ambition?’. When we say ambition what do we mean? Yes, what do we mean?

Listener 1: I want to do.