The present-day world is so obsessed with speed and targets. When Krishna says in the Bhagwat Geeta that we should focus on the work and not be bothered about results, what does he really mean, and how is the same relevant in the present-day world, over-obsessed with results? The world is so fast. We travel by flight and cross many oceans and countries in hours. In fact, the present-day rockets are trying to take human beings to Mars. We have already reached the Moon.
When we take a flight and set the destination as our target, we pass through so many cities. Do we actually experience any of those cities or countries? For example, while flying from Delhi to NewYork, one may pass through many countries of Asia and Europe. Do we actually get to experience those countries? No. But when we travel by train, we pass through cities and get to experience a little bit of those cities. When we travel by bus, we get to know a little bit more about the cities on the way. We decided to visit one of these cities as tourists and stay in a hotel, and visit the tourist places. We get to know a little more. We take up employment in one of the cities and stay there, and get to know the city more closely. But we know the city, we are born and brought up with the best. The point I am trying to drive home is that when our focus is on the destination, we miss the journey. The same is true in life. When our focus is on the targets and outcomes, we tend to accelerate speed and miss the finer details. The greater the speed and the more details we miss.
Does that mean that we settle down in some town and stay confined to our home? Not at all. That is not at all the message of Krishna. He is the one who encourages Arjuna to fight the battle. Had it been the case, he would have agreed to the decision of Arjuna not to fight the battle, and the battle would have ended there. Krishna tells Arjuna neither to stay away from the battlefield nor to focus on winning. He tells Arjuna to be present in the moment and do his work. Arjuna has been a warrior by choice, and therefore, fighting the battle is his work. He is not trained to write the story of the Mahabharata like Ved Vyasa. Krishna tells that while fighting the battle, Arjuna should not focus on winning or losing, rather he should just focus on the task at hand. When we focus on the task at hand, we observe the minutest of details and tend to do the task effectively.
That's what life is all about. Neither rushing to reach some destination, nor staying idle and wasting all the possibilities. It is just living to the fullest. A tree is not in a hurry to produce flowers or fruits. It waits for the right season and blooms. It gives space to the other plants, also to bloom and have their share of life. Not so that in the rest of the period, it is idle. It is constantly growing, and when the right season comes, it produces fruit. Focus on the targets brings restlessness, which snatches life away from us. Restlessness does not allow us to connect to life, to observe the details, to find solutions. We may claim after reaching New York that we have visited so many countries that were on the way while we were flying from Delhi, but the fact remains that we were never there in any of those countries, and we know nothing about them. Similarly, in our obsession with targets after the target, how life passes, we never get to realize, and probably we never experience life, and miss all the possibilities that exist as a human being to explore and experience life. We have to just choose our own pace at which we may experience life fully.
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