Most of the people in this world are busy fulfilling one or the other ambition in life. Most of them are quite convinced about their ambitions. There is very sound logic to be so convinced. Firstly, they feel that if they are not so convinced of their goals, they will end up being losers in the absence of the do-or-die spirit. Secondly, they feel that these ambitions make what they are and will be in their life. They feel that people without ambitions just prove to be failures in their lives.
I fully agree that we need to have clearly defined goals to move ahead in life. Goals give us energy and direction in life. Rama had a goal of bringing Sita back and he could find Hanumana and Sugriva in the process. It was that goal that gave him energy and determination. Similarly, Arjuna had the goal of fighting the battle of Dharma which gave him energy and clarity. Mahatma Gandhi had the goal of independence of India and that gave him energy and courage to unite the people of India against the mighty British. Einstein had the goal of knowing the secrets of nature and that gave him energy and determination to work hard to come out with the most counter-intuitive theories in the world of quantum physics. There is no doubt about the necessity of the goal in our life.
However, ambitions become problematic when they are based on a narrow perspective of the world. We may fix our life ambitions while being a kid. We will end up with the dreams of being the best student in the school. It is because while being inside the well, we have a very narrow perspective. We can not look beyond the well. While being inside the well, we can set targets based on the vision we have. This creates two distinct problems. Firstly, our lives become as narrow as our goals. Secondly, there are more and more chances of us getting fixated on these targets because we have never seen the wider picture of life.
We may define targets in terms of coming first in the class, then coming first in the university, then coming first in the organization, the fastest promotion, and so on. Slowly we get obsessed with being first. Can we see how narrow and stressful our life becomes in the process? Similarly, we may define target in terms of having fun with friends, having fun in the family, and then having fun with colleagues. Can we see how narrow our life has become and how slowly we get fixated on pleasure and whenever we are deprived of the pleasures, we become worried and anxious.
Narrowness creates conflicts. Arjuna set a target for winning the battle of Kurukshetra. Till the time he reached the battlefield, he was very convinced of his target. However, as soon as he reached the battlefield, he realized that he had to fight the battle against his own cousins. All the old samskaras started creating conflicts. He thought that if he fought against his own family members, he would go to hell. The society will consider him to be a bad person. Whenever our goals are set based on a narrow perspective, there come many conflicts. All these conflicts are actually just different vantage points to look at the reality.
That is why the only thing that matters in life is the wideness of the perspective. Krishna helped Arjuna recenter his perspective of life. Krishna revealed his Divyarop to Arjuna. Arjuna understood that all the beings have emerged from Krishna and merged back into Him. That is what the role of consciousness is. Everything and everyone emerges from the same and merges back into the same. We have formed different likes and dislikes and remain fixated on the same. These likes and dislikes drive our lives. At times, these likes and dislikes are conflicting and therefore put us in trouble. Even without conflicts, they make us narrow and limited. The conscious part thereof is just the tip of an iceberg. There are many more likes and dislikes hidden deep into the unconscious being.
We live a very limited and unfulfilling life being trapped in these likes and dislikes till the time we get to observe them, The mere act of observation, without reaction, creates a space between these likes and dislikes and ourselves. We become free of fixation. In that state of freedom, we can see the wideness of life. We can set different goals in that state of awareness, which will make our lives meaningful. Love and compassion are the guiding force in that state of awareness, rather than the fulfillment of individual desires. Individual desires are the result of discontentment that is experienced because of the disconnection from the inner being. Love and compassion set very wide goals for our lives which are free from all types of conflicts and there is no question of fixation since there is no discontentment. One just wants to share the love one experiences internally.
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