Finding direction at the cross roads
There is an interesting story from the Puranas. A King called Yashvardhan had got a beautiful garden made. He filled it with beautiful flowers with the sweetest of fragrances. He got an artistic musical fountain constructed which would dance gracefully to feast the eyes. He had also got a pond made with boating facility. He had filled the garden with beautiful birds from all around the world. To add to the beauty of the garden, he had also got the best sculptors from around the world to create erogenous statues. He had also made a beautiful temple with the best of the marbles. After his magnificent garden was made, he challenged the people to enter the garden and seek him out of his hiding place and he would reward the winner. Many people entered the garden to take up the challenge, but they would all get lost in the beauty and distractions that it had to provide. They would forget the reason why they were there in the first place and would fail to seek the King out. Then came a person who kept searching for the king without falling for the many distractions that the garden had to offer. The King was disguised as a priest and hid in the temple, while this single focused person sought him out and won the grand prize. Student life is just like the King?s garden where, it is easy to lose our focus. We get distracted in worldly objects and forget about the main objective for which we join college or university.
If you want to achieve anything in life, first, set your goals. Unless you have a sense of where you want to go, how will you find your direction? This reminds me of a story of a wise man who was standing at a crossroad. One of the passersby points to a road and asked him where it leads to. The wise man did not respond. The passerby points to another road and asks again,” Please tell me where this road leads to”. The wise man remains silent. The passerby loses patience and pointing to the third road asks the same question angrily. At this the wise man breaks his silence and asks, “Where do you want to go exactly”? The passerby by was silent. The wise man responds to his silence,” If you do not know where you want to go, how does it help you to know if the path leads to Sholapur, Satara or Kolhapur”? One must have clarity of his destination and the direction will become clear.
These goals must be written down to avoid fuzziness in your mind. Many of you might remember your parents asking you to write down the multiplication tables or some verses on a paper and stick them to the wall to check every day. This would ensure that these are imprinted into your minds for life. Same goes with writing down your goals. Hang them over your bed to see it the first thing and last thing for the day. Doing this will force the subconscious mind conceive the goals properly. The right brain, which is our subservient, creates the condition for success or failure. So if conceived well, the chances of success are 100%.
I remember my grandmother telling me that if I want to get up early in the morning, I need to tell it to my pillow. It was not that she was asking me to talk to my pillow, but to my right brain. I will like to quote Andrew Carnegie who said, "If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts liberates your energy and inspires your hopes".
Picasso has also confirmed the same thought and written, "Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success".