How to deal with life problems
Question
Dear Dhananjay,
While I have read all of your past answers and the tenets of sadhana, I find it extremely difficult to eradicate my "wants".
My desires are very strong.
I want to become a New York Times best-selling author.
I want to start a consultancy and speak to great Fortune 500 companies.
I want to be in demand.
These desires ravage the mind and spoil peace. I cannot make any progress for my days are spent lamenting and anguishing.
I am unsure if I will reach these goals and that further creates problems.
1) How does one deal with such strong desires for achievement and success? Is it permissible to pursue them? How do we stifle the feelings of inferiority and uncertainty which raise in the mind?
2) My Professor is a world-renowned expert who is a genius in his field. He gives talks and charges $100,000 per speech. Seeing such success makes this foolish ego very jealous. Envy raises its ugly hood and poisons the mind. How does one deal with this horrible emotion?
3) I am a young man of 21. I desire to control and transmute veerya but one impediment derails me-I am often very sleepy in afternoons and when I sleep during the day, veerya is unfortunately lost. How can I gain enough energy to NOT fall asleep in the day time?
4) My mind is also turbulent. Always. Apart from the few minutes of respite I get during pranayama and yoga sadhana, every other moment is filled with tension, anger, uncertainty, and fear about how the future will unfold.
How is our future fully in HIS hands if the actions conducted by the ego have their own fruits in the material world? Does HE dictate all or is there a small portion of fate that we control and direct ourselves?
There are tennis players who win dozens of trophies and make millions of dollars. Other players-who try as hard-get injured at a young age and have no luck.
Does it not drive one mad to think that so much is OUT of our control? We could live for another 50 years or be violently put to an end by a gunman in a public space tomorrow.
The uncertainty of life is so evident yet the mind still roams in jealousy and worry! Why?
5) I wish I could have a guru in the flesh to look up to. Swami Sivananda's picture is all I have and even that fails to assuage my doubts at times. Are there any real enlightened souls on the planet? I would be surprised if there are more than a few. I seek the guidance of these souls. If you happen to be one of them, I would be most thrilled. If not, you are so far along the path that I will take your answers in stride and work to perfect myself further based on your advice.
Humbly yours,
Sam
Answer
1. The sadhaka who sticks to honest and regular Sadhana to realize the self is assured of material gain as well, if there is such a want. It comes at the destined times.
2. Envy is the resort of the weak mind. Through meditation on the self, such Vasana-s gradually vacate and one loses attachment to the source of envy, which is desire.
3. Sleepiness during day is the effect of lack of adequate mental and physical activity on a constructive basis. Applying the same and working towards a goal, without expectation is the remedy.
4. Knowing one's right ends at effort, one should be at peace, as a silent onlooker, content with what comes through such honest efforts. The higher power decides what and how. That is not one's concern. He who follows this rule is not affected by success or failure, knowing both to be unsubstantial & Maya. He resides in the bliss of the self.
The world is the stage with the Almighty as the director and man as the actor. Life events and experiences are a part of the play. Just as an actor does not get affected by the sorrows or joys of the character he enacts, the wise Yogi does not get affected by the events in the life play, knowing his Dharma ends at honest enactment of the script laid down by the God-director.
ॐ तत् सत्
(That Supreme being is the absolute truth)