The simple ‘law’ to make progress
If you are going through a time when everything around you feels really, really disconcerting to you, it is absolutely okay to be in that specific situation—why?—because it exposes you, the person who you are, exposes your vulnerability. And this is what ‘exactly’ you need to become. You need to become ‘actually vulnerable’. You don't need to become confident about what you want to achieve, absolutely no. The more you are able to expose yourself, the more you are able to be tenacious with your vulnerability, the more progress you will make. This is the simple ‘law’. The more tenacious you are with your vulnerability, the more progressive you will become. As simple as that.
If you want to create a future for yourself, the only way you can proceed is to know things in absolute clarity. If the thing that you want to seek disquietens you, it means that it disturbs you to a greater degree. The chances are that you are perturbed. You are not very comfortable with what you want to achieve, and being uncomfortable is the best place to be, to begin with. Why am I saying so? —because the only way you can proceed in life is being where you are in this very chaotic moment as you feel it, because chaos is a new order. The place where you are right now has you in the making. It always has had you in the making because you were the one at the helm of the affair because of which you landed up being where you are. So there's no point complaining about it. Absolutely no!
What you should do rather is to face up front what it is. If you could just face up front what it is, it will magically change you. But what happens is, once there is a design and the design is so superficial and so dazzling that we just want to have a lot of fantasies of what would the outcome be of … if we achieve it, what would the outcome be once we have got it. This is where the real problem lies because it brings your strength down and scales up your fantasies. This is where the real problem lies because there is a ‘friction’. There is a friction between who I am and what I would like to have in my life. There is a huge gap between the person whom I am becoming and what I would like to seek in my life. As long as there is a gap between who you are and what you’d like to achieve and if the gap between these two even widens further, the chances are the both will be two different things altogether—either you or either what you would like to have.
So, as long as you are okay with being in chaos where you are at this point in time, you are right in the track because being in pain is ‘much more’ better as an option than being comfortable in the land of fantasies. Isn't it? That's true. If I am going through a time when everything around me feels really, really disconcerting to me, it is absolutely okay to be in that specific situation, why? —because it exposes me, the person who I am, exposes my vulnerability. And this is what ‘exactly’ you need to become. You need to become ‘actually vulnerable’. You don't need to become confident about what you want to achieve, absolutely no. The more you are able to expose yourself, the more you are able to be tenacious with your vulnerability, the more progress you will make. This is the simple ‘law’. The more tenacious you are with your vulnerability, the more progressive you will become. As simple as that.
And this stretch of imagination can only be drawn by the imagination which goes beyond the perception, which goes beyond the conditioned construct of what you have become till now, which could be changed. This is only a conditioned pattern which is stopping you, and this is exactly what I mean by coming up front and facing yourself as who you are. This is the only way forward. There's no ‘any other’ way out. There's no other, other option. Because it involves you, it takes your attention. And whatever takes your attention disturbs you. Whatever demands your concentration ‘disquietens you’. Whatever brings you closer to the real image of who you are, it frightens the hell out of you. It freaks you out. That's the reason you want to run away because finding escape route and because it's so easy to get drawn into the pool of fantasies and swim there, to dive into there because the water even doesn't exist, but there is a swimming pool, and these splashes and ripples of excitements always get us drowned into them, and we keep postponing our own self. We keep postponing our own success because the pool of fantasy is a ripple of excitement, is so much pleasing to our senses, so much pleasing to these gray spots of ours, because once it is revealed, we’ll be all scattered. This is what the conditioned pattern is. And once this conditioned pattern is broken, a lot could be changed within us. So anything, everything can be transmuted at any point in time. Anything and everything can be transmuted, molded, into the best version of yourself because it is ‘the very perspective’ with which you live your life. It is ‘the very perspective’ with which you color the very connotation of your character. So, once you know which color you want to paint your character as, you would know exactly where to go. But most of them don't know what their color is. That's the problem because they are afraid of the shade: people may not like the color. It doesn't matter what people and the world will think about you. It makes no difference. The only thing that makes the world of difference about you is you. That is it. That's why ‘each of’ one of us is so unique. Our fingerprints cannot be of a similar kind even though we were born as twins, absolutely not. Nothing in this Verse is similar. It is the ‘diverse’ which has the beauty in it which holds the beauty of this universe.
So it is all about how vulnerable you are, how tenacious you are with your own self, with your own vulnerability. The more you expose yourself, the better it is, the more progressive you will become.
It is not about finding a specific thing in life. The more you try to find something outside of you, the further that thing will go away from you. That is a simple thing. The more you try to pursue a career and you know that you are not in the confinement of the rules and regulations which it requires for you to succeed, the further it will go away. The more you pursue a ‘dream’ which is not practical, the further it will go away. And the more fantasies of life which you will finally succumb to, will have you in a more of a chaotic situation over and over again. That's how the mind works. Because ‘mind’ is ruled by emotions, as long as ‘mind’ is ruled by emotions, any blow of any excitement can throw your life off the ‘balance’. That is the main problem.
So all we need to do is to create an alignment where we are not ruled by anything and everything. We are just centered. If we learn this ‘technique’ that ‘how exposed we could be at each given point in time’ and be comfortable with it, a lot would change about us. Everything will change about us. That's why all the greatest leaders of the world—they are the most vulnerable people in the world, aren't they? Look at their lives. They are lampooned at each point in time. Every day there is a report. There is a whole host of media around them that makes disparaging remarks about what they have done, what they are doing, what they will do. Aren't they ‘most vulnerable’ people? What about the superstars? Look at their lives. But they are highly successful, aren't they? Yes or no? So the only thing that revolves around you is how exposed you could be because the more exposed you are, the more ‘stronger’ you will become. Because the more you would like to envelope yourself with the layers of Illusion, the more ‘weak’, feeble character you will become over a period of time.
So all the feeble characters have the ‘layer of Illusions’ around them. They wear the blanket of Illusions around them. And the blanket is so thick that no matter how it is draped, which side of the shoulder it is draped, finally it comes out one day, and that's the end of it. So the people whom you see as the ones who have achieved everything, the people whom you see as successful and you want to seek the same, are not the ones who are pursuing it, absolutely not. They are not the ones who are pursuing it, but they have become it. They have become it, that's the only difference.
So, if you understand this part that ‘how not to be led by your emotions’ and ‘just be centered within’, just be centered and rooted within yourself, you would exactly know how to respond to each incident of your life. And if you know this thing—how to respond to each happening of your life—you would lead a most magical life. You would have success all the way. But it will have its own ‘turns and twist’ for which you will be prepared, and you will have to be prepared for because these things do not just come in; they always test you. So the more you, the more you challenge yourself to become a better version of yourself by shedding off the Illusions one by one, you will see the ‘brighter days’ ahead. You will see that things are happening and turning the corner for you because you are changing as a person; you are evolving as a person. And as you do that the being who you are will be much more important than the very pursuing nature of what you’d like to have because anyway what you'd like to have will fade into insignificance after some time, after having achieved it. It will be just a very mediocre thing. So whatever excites us will kind of create the dazzle around, which we will feel drawn to. It is very natural. Absolutely! There is ‘nothing wrong’ in it. But what about having achieved it? After having achieved it, it's so common. Now that common ‘turns into’ mediocre. Now we want to further go ahead. And this loop of success will keep happening around the clock in your life. Just imagine something that you had envisioned around two decades ago or a decade ago. And what about now? Having achieved it, are you as excited as you were at that time when you didn't have it? Are you? I don't think so. Now it's okay with you what you have achieved. But have you stopped? No. You want to go further up. Yes, you do.
So this loop of success will always be there. And there’s ‘nothing wrong’ in it. We all are human beings and we aspire to achieve more and more. That's the way we are, that's the way—that's how we, ‘we have been designed’. And we shall always aspire to go up the ladder towards success. Absolutely!
We can never stop ourself. Stopping is like dying. There's no change there. But we as human beings have one possibility that changes our nature and is our birthright. And that is possible: it’s just putting yourself into this present moment, into this present situation, which requires exposure of our own self which at times frightens us, which at times freaks us out. This is exactly what we needed. This is exactly what is required at this point in time to have our absolute presence right here, right now, wherever we are. Absolute involvement! Absolute involvement into this present moment—this intensity of awareness will magically change your life. And so, even though you achieve anything that you dream of, it's one thing, and it keeps happening. That's why you see around the world today the people who have achieved one thing after the other, and it keeps happening; they achieve one thing, and the other thing comes up, and they keep achieving more and more and more and more. In fact, they are not in the loop of it. It's just that they have molded themselves into such a way that success does not hit them in their head.
And, as far as failure is concerned, it's just the other day. Anyway, it doesn't make a difference to their lives, absolutely not. They would not be washed away by any blow of failure. Absolutely no!
They have learnt how to turn failures into triumph. and that happens only when you are able to respond to each happening of your life in a way that enhances the life experiences. So, if you could accept this part that everything is there to enhance your life, no matter what it is—it may be positive, it may be negative. It could have any color or texture. It could be black or white or green, whatever it is. It's just the experiences of life. It is not life itself. Everything that you gather from anything in the world, no matter who is giving it, no matter who is there to get you what you like, or you don't like, it does not matter. ‘You just know it’ that it is there to enhance your life. If it has to be there, you don't have to accept it if it's not of your choice, absolutely not. If it doesn't ‘suit’, you don't have to accept it. But if it is designed to be part of your life and if you accept it, embrace it as it is, just as an add-on to the experiences, which will further enhance the experiences of life, these experiences if they are accepted as they are and embraced, a Divine will work for you; a greater dimension will appear right before you. You would exactly be headed in the right direction. Usually, these things do not happen.
So the problem here is ‘that resistance’. The more you resist the change, the horrible it will become. It will exacerbate the matter. It will create blockages on the way. It will create more of ‘obstacles’ on the way. And then you will lament later, “Oh, what did I do wrong to have all these impediments in my way!” I'm not making any progress. In fact, it was you, it was your resistance to the change. But something happened in the past, and you resisted, and the block that could have been cleared was further cemented with more blocks. That's the only reason.
Facing, up front, what it is, as it is, is the answer. Facing, up front, what it is, no matter how it is, as it is, is the key. And that requires only one thing, just one thing: your absolute presence, right here, right now.
if you have reached to ‘that level of evolution’, then ‘all there is’ is not to dictate you, absolutely not. Faith will not dictate you. Success will not dictate you. Failure will not dictate you. No one will dictate you. You are the captain of your ship, and there's no big deal about it. It's your nature. It’s your natural way of being.