Welcome to Mohanji Speaks.
Hello friends, hope you’re doing well.
The question of success, what is a success is very relative, means it’s different from person to person. I would call success contentment. This is my take about success. Perpetual contentment means you’re happy with the situation.
When we were talking about success recently, I was telling people that success cannot be defined by your activity or what you do for a living. That’s immaterial. Eating, drinking sleeping and taking a bath, that’s not a success. That’s part of existence.
Success is when you have perpetual contentment, every moment, all the time. And success is, for me, not doing an activity, but having a proper goal, clarity about it, and working for it, without expecting anything out of it. I’ll explain further. We all work hard sometimes, really hard for a certain result. When the result does not happen as per expectation, we have suffering, we feel sad.
How do we overcome this?
You know I was looking back at my own life; what created Mohanji. Well, the early 2000s, I was concentrating on finding silence. I wanted to see where noises end. That was my quest. I was trying to find the root of all noises. When I was in isolation, when external noises were not bothering me anymore, I started getting connected or being aware of the internal noises. The main noise has been thoughts, too many noises, and a variety of noises. Then, I was trying to find the source of that noise also.
Where is silence?
Finding silence was my aim, and I did not have an expectation that I will find it. When the expectation was removed, the journey was easy.
Many times, we are not achieving what we have to achieve, because expectation supersedes determination. First of all, clarity of goal – I had clarity; I was finding silence. And I said I would find silence someday. Then distraction doesn’t matter. Distractions are a part of our life.
Distractions come and go, in one way or the other, we are distracted all the time. But it will not be affecting you if you are not expecting a certain result, within a certain time. Here the goal was there, the determination was there, and a definite discipline was there.
Every day, 2:30 am I got up, took a bath. I would sit in my room, which I had prepared specifically for practices. I sat there until eight. That means five hours, depending on the workload; I sometimes stop at 7.30, but at least four or five hours of total silence, totally being with myself. That time without expectation finally took me to a level of silence, where I had no thoughts, no noises.
Why I am explaining my own story is because it can be kind of a benchmark. Not that I’m asking you to follow the same thing.
Whatever you want to achieve in life, it should have clarity. The goal should be well thought of, that means you should meditate on it. You need to sit down and think, even if it’s a small activity every day.
Just imagine if you have to do a presentation, just meditate a little on how the presentation should be, how it will be received, or how you want people to see it. Today, the attention levels are so low. People have great distractions, because of the internet age, tremendous distraction. And if you do not express yourself in an interesting way within a certain period of time, you can’t convey the message.
Drawn or dragging kind of presentations nobody will watch. You got to have dynamism, and you need to know that the people out there have great distraction levels. If you really want to catch their attention, you need to present it within the time span. Let’s say one minute or one and a half minutes, and you should catch the attention of the people in that time. And if the subject matter is good for them, they will watch. Or we should be good. If the subject is not so good, then you can compensate it with visuals, like a visual presentation. People can still be attracted to it. Then only you will catch the attention.
Expectations
Likewise,
When your expectation is more than your determination, the chances are that you will have a lot of disappointments.
We’ve got to understand this very clearly. When we have less expectation, we have greater success. When expectations are there, distractions are also there. For example, I did not know what silence tastes like; I did not know what it smells like; I did not know how it feels like. I did not know what I was searching for. But I knew one thing, there is a space called silence. There’s something called silence, and there is something called no thoughts.
On a consistent basis, I was trying to find it, and that took years literally. But again, I was not distracted because I did not have an expectation that I will complete it within this time. That really helped me. Because now looking back, I know this, but at that time, I didn’t have these thoughts.
I’m telling you this now, after all these years. If I had an expectation of completion within a particular time, it would have probably been a different game. Now, distraction was taken care of. Distractions happen, but I wasn’t worried. If I get distracted, then I get back, because I have no timeframe, no agenda, and no expectation. This was really helpful.
Discipline
We must have discipline; we must have determination. Discipline is very important because, at that particular time, the subconscious allows it to happen. If it is different times and if you’re irregular with it, it will not happen. That’s why in practices you do, there should be a discipline, at least initially. After a while you won’t need the practice, it’s like crossing the river. You need a boat to cross the river, but after crossing the river, you may not need the boat at all. Maybe it’s land, and then if you need another river to cross, there will be a boat there, trust it.
What actually affects our normal routine, or what affects our success rate, is our expectation in it. And also, the distraction connected to it. Please take for granted, there will be distractions in life, there is bound to be because we are worldly beings. There will be distractions, but we must have a goal and a vision much brighter and shining in front of us than the distractions. Distractions will come and go, but the goal always remains. So this is very important to understand.
When we are moving in the path of liberation, we must know that and reduce expectations. Concentrate on your activity, the practice, and don’t look for a particular result within a particular time. Don’t even compete with others, because they are distractions. Comparisons and competitions are all distractions.
We must steer clear of all these kinds of stuff, and have clarity of thought, clarity of goals, clarity of vision, plus determination and less expectation, or no expectations, and just focus on the activity. Then the results will come in its time; it will for sure. This is very important to understand when we talk about the success that gives contentment.
What is a detriment for contentment?
When expectation happens, you need a particular result to happen for happiness. When the result doesn’t happen, you have no happiness, even if it is a positive thing. Sometimes we miss it because the result did not happen as per our expectation. This is very important to understand. We must be very clear; we must be very sure that whatever the results maybe, I’m doing my work. I’m putting in my effort. This is exactly how we should proceed.
I hope this is clear. If you have a question, I would like to answer. And I wish you great success in life, do great things in life, you have the power, you have the energy, you have everything for this. Even people who do not have proper legs, meaning with artificial limbs, they have climbed Everest. If they can do that, we can do much, much more. We have all the power, all the energy,
Just align yourself with your goal of life, and let the goal be for the betterment of the world. Let it be for great selfless reasons so that the energy and the power that will power that goal will be much higher than a selfish goal.
Wish you success. This is Mohanji for you.
Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt
Proofread by Shyama Jeyaseelan