An ambitious mind will remain in conflict || Acharya Prashant, with youth (2013)
Speaker: The question can be broadly put as, ‘why is it so that our happiness comes at the cost of others?’ Why is it always a zero-sum game: if I win, you lose, if I am happy then you are sad? Why is it always like this?
This is the basis of the entire system in which you are living. What else is competition? Today all the systems that you have are in some way or the other based on competition.The question essentially is, ‘can there be a way of living in which one’s joy is not dependent on the suffering of the other?’ Can there be a way of living harmoniously, such that there is no conflict, there is no win-lose situation? This is a very important question, because till the time there is this obsession with winning, winning essentially means defeating the other, till the time there is this obsession with winning, with achieving, we and the world will always remain in conflict. Are you getting this? Go into this along with me.
What lies at the basis of this kind of thinking that creates this world wherein some way my happiness is always linked with me being able to take something from others? The reason is simple, very very simple if you look at it. Whenever you link, you connect your happiness to an external goal, there would always be conflict because the external objects will always be limited in number, the objects of your ambition would always be limited. And the more limited they are, the more attractive they become. Don’t you see this? The rarer a thing is, the bigger an achievement is to get it. Do you see this? That is how our life functions. Get something from the outside, and if there are one lac candidates running after it, then it is a big achievement to get it. And if there are ten candidates and ten seats, then it is not a big achievement.
That is how our minds have been programmed to think, always chasing the external. Till the time there is a search for the external, till the time success is linked to achievement in the outside world, in the terms of accumulating possessions, collecting objects, and that object could be a totally mental object like reputation, collecting reputation, collecting security, collecting power and prestige, till the time success is linked with collection of external objects, there is bound to be conflict. Conflict will surely take place because you would aim at a thing and thousands others will also aim at that thing.
