Youth Issues

Browse through the questions to find the answer

 

 

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Questions

• How do I control my temptation to go in for the various distracting elements in spite of knowing that it is not right?
  
  
• If God is everywhere, why do I not see him in a disco or a college canteen?
  
  
• How do I decide which is the most suitable job for me?
  
  
• I love my family and friends very dearly. But they do not understand my love. They don’t care for me. What do I do?
  
  
• I have been mostly successful in whatever I’ve done so far. But sometimes when I fail I don’t know how to handle it.
  
  
• I like being alone. I am not a party animal and don’t like much socialization. But my friends make fun of me and tease me. Is something wrong with me?

You say you know that it is not right. However, this knowledge of yours is only intellectual in nature. You may be logically convinced that certain things are not right. But your temptation for those things seem more powerful because you have been entertaining these temptations for years and by now they have become strong habits. However, once you start becoming aware of what is right and what is wrong, quite a lot of your job is already done! Now, to see your convictions express themselves in your actions, you need to put in some extra efforts…

• “Let not a day pass by without reading 5 pages of a scripture. Be regular in your pursuits. Be sincere in your studies.” – Swami Chinmayananda

Read inspiring literature related to your subject of interest, and pump yourself with more and more love for the better way of acting and thinking that you are striving for.

• “From time to time, take a close and honest look at yourself. It pays.” – Swami Chinmayananda

Spend half an hour every morning quietly introspecting over all your thoughts, words and actions of the previous day, trying to understand objectively why you did or said what you did or said, and resolve never to repeat the mistakes that you have done.

• Find higher interests to hang on to every time you feel tempted. For instance, every time you feel like meeting someone you know you must not meet, rather than sitting in your room and contemplating over whether you should call him/her or not, go and meet another inspiring friend or spend some time with your parents or siblings or teachers, or just read something that inspires you the most!
• “In order to fight against the hordes of temptations in the everyday world, he (the individual) needs a fortress around him, which is drawn from his association with good people” – Swami Chinmayananda

Keep good company. If you really want to overcome temptations, keep away from people who get tempted or who tempt you towards the unadvisable.

• “Keeping a noble and divine ideal constantly in our mind’s eye is to inspire us to action; it is to help us see ourselves as we are; it is to give us muscles to whip our own enemies.” – Swami Chinmayananda

Thus, have an inspiring ideal or goal in life – it may be a person, God, your Guru, or just a virtue. Be willing to hold on to your ideal through every step that you march ahead in your life.

Ref. Read Swami Chinmayananda’s Commentaries on Adi Shankaracharya’s Bhaja Govindam

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Yes, it is true that God is everywhere. But, we are not ready to see Him anywhere at all. The question is, do you see God in the temple at least? You perhaps see only His idol, but not Him. To see God, you need to prepare yourself. To see God, you need a still and quiet mind. God dwells in a quiet mind. All you need to do is to make your mind quiet. Then, there is no need to search for God either in the temple or in the disco. You will see him everywhere! However, now, when you are still at the level of preparation, when your mind remains extrovert, agitated and pleasure-seeking, constantly pondering over mundane worldly affairs or other tiny pin-pricks of life, it is better to go to a temple in search of God than to a disco, because a temple caters better towards your preparation i.e. it helps you make your mind quiet!

Ref. Read Swami Chinmayananda’s Commentary on Bhagawad Geeta Chapter 11 Verse 1-14

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The job, which will prove best suitable for you, is the job that is most suitable for your temperament. What is temperament? It is your basic inherent qualities. Your temperament is what you are born with. It is, however, different from talents. Your temperament is a part of your persona. It is your nature. If, for instance, you are a creative person by temperament, and you take to poetry-writing, you will be much happier than if you become a manager of a multi-national company. Similarly, if you are calculative by temperament, you will do much better as a C.A. than as a doctor. Thus, you need to determine your own temperament and understand your own bent of mind in order to determine the most suitable job for you. And that which you discover will be your Swadharma. The following are a few pointers to know your Swadharma:

• One never gets fed-up of one’s Swadharma.
• One is not worried about results when performing one’s Swadharma. A true artist is not worried whether his art is appreciated or not. To him, painting by itself is the reward.
• One’s own Swadharma gives maximum satisfaction and joy to oneself.
• Performance of one’s Swadharma finally leads to making the mind quiet and still. Work, which leads to agitation, is not your Swadharma.

In order to clearly determine your Swadharma, you must understand your own mind and nature. For this, give yourself enough time. Practice self-observation 24*7. If required, take some personality/aptitude tests. Spend some time analyzing your own interests. Watch yourself through different kinds of work. Remember you can succeed in any job if you love it and are passionate about it!

BE PROUD OF YOUR SWADHARMA, AND PUSRUE IT DILLIGENTLY!

Ref. Read Swami Chinmayananda’s Commentary on the Bhagavad Geeta Chapter 18 Verses 40-48

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It is nice that you love your friends and family very dearly. Love, when it is true and full, unconditional and joyful, it is its own reward.

“Love is a fulfillment in itself” – Narada Bhakti Sutra

Love must always be without expectations. If after giving love, you anxiously await others to understand your love, or land up in disappointment in case they don’t understand, then perhaps it is more of a trade than love. In love, there is only giving.

“Love is an aggressively consistent pattern to give, than a meekly persistent hope to receive.” – Swami Chinmayananda

Love given, only on being paid back by love and recognition, is not love. This is a commercial attitude. Love is not to be bartered for love. Love must be given away lavishly without expecting any results, any gains, any profits.

They, who give love only in return of love received, will obviously feel cheated and sad when they do not get sufficient love in return of the love they have given away. People, who have such a commercial temperament, feel extremely unhappy, terribly disappointed, severely crushed. But this is meaningless! How can all give love? Only they, who are rich in love, can give love. How can they give, who don’t have?

So, just stop begging for other’s love. You have not come into this world to beg for love. You are here to distribute, to donate, to spread, to shower, to squander love on all others. Be a dynamic lover – marching out for giving love and not looking out for receiving love. You must develop this capacity to love – and learn to flood life with your love by giving love, asking for nothing in return, expecting nothing, wanting nothing!

“To give love is true freedom, to demand love is pure slavery.” – Swami Chinmayananda

Ref. Read ‘I Love You (Letters to Children)’ by Swami Chinmayananda

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Action is the insignia of life. Action is inevitable to every form of life. All creatures must act. And when there is action, there will be incidents of winning as well as failing. But, does that really decide whether you are successful or not? To know the reply to this, we must first understand what exactly is success? Most people mistaken winning as success. But the two are not the same. Let us first understand the difference between winning and success…

Now, you must decide… Are you successful or are you a winner? One can be successful in spite of external failure. Swami Chinmayananda used to say, “Success is in the race run, not in the trophy won.” True success lies in the efforts exerted, not in the results achieved. Success is the joy of putting in your 100% into every act you undertake, not in scoring 99.9% at the end of it. Success is the joy of doing, not the pleasure of winning.

Does that mean that you fail in spite of putting in your best efforts? No, it means that you succeed in spite of not being acknowledged as the one who has put in your best efforts!

• Thus, the 1st point is this: The moment you do a job in a full-fledged, whole-hearted way, you are already successful, irrespective of whether you win or fail!

“Success is the tribute life pays to excellence.” – Swami Chinmayananda

Besides, if for every job you do, you get anxious about the end-results, then a huge amount of your mental-energies get dissipated in this tension. This obviously does not allow you to give your 100% to the job in hand. If you do not give your 100% to the work, obviously there is very less chance of you winning. When you fail, you obviously feel depressed because this was your main concern throughout. Due to depression, you cannot see the lessons you must learn from this experience. This leads to lack of improvement. That makes you feel unsecured. Insecurity makes you anxious about the next action you take up. And the cycle continues!

• So, what is the solution? Swami Chinmayananda says, “Give your Best & Leave the Rest.”
• This attitude can be developed by understanding the Law of Karma:

1) Action is anything we do with our body, mind and intellect. Every action will produce a result.

2) The action itself in a different form is the result. If we take care of the actions, the results will automatically take care of themselves.

3) When you will experience result of which action – whether it will come immediately or later, this depends on certain Cosmic Laws.

4) The doer of the action alone is the experiencer of the result.

5) Results are experience internally as well as in the external world.

6) The motive of the action is the merit of the action.

So now you know, that a job done well with noble intensions will definitely reap good results – if not right then and there, somewhere else in some other way at some other time. So, why worry????

Whenever, failure comes, analyze carefully the reasons behind your failure. If you have goofed up somewhere, then learn the lesson and drop all the rest of the matter. Mistakes are to be learnt from. Failure is an incident of making a mistake and facing its results. That’s it! But, that does not make you a failure. You are a living success. Every action you set your hands on declares you a success. You success is in doing, not in winning.

And if you ever feel you have given your 100% to the action, and yet you happened to meet failure, then understand that this is the will of the Cosmic Law Maker. But you need not worry! What you have sown, will definitely fructify at the right time later on.

In short, understand that if you like winning, you must learn to face failure as well. But in either case, you are a grand success!

Ref. Read Secret of Action by Swami Chinmayananda

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There is nothing wrong with you until you believe that there is something wrong with you. Every human being is born with a special temperament. In fact, the entire caste system of the Hindus is originally based on the inherent psychological temperament of people…

Thus, every person is born with a certain temperament. And that is what is supposed to be his caste. Let us add here that therefore caste is not by birth, but by temperament, and also that it can change with change in temperament. Also, one person can, at one particular point in time, belong to more than one temperamental categories.

Thus, what we are actually trying to say is that if you are born with a certain temperament, which is of the more contemplative and introvert type, then there is no problem with you. And understand that a lot of other people like you exist all over the world. Also, if you have undergone a gradual transformation into the person you are now due to some positive understanding and knowledge, even then there is no problem.

But, if you are turning into this kind of a life and thought-pattern because of a particular negative incident in your life, or a sudden change of ideals, then try taking personal help, talk to somebody or go for counseling, and you will definitely get over it.

However, as far as your friends are concerned, let their opinion not control your thinking. People always make fun of anybody, who is different, from the commoners. But, why should their opinion upset you so much? If you think you are fine, then stick to your stand. Don’t worry about others’ comments. They are not even thinking about you before or after they make fun of you. To them, it’s just time pass. You too laugh with them, and forget it.

Of course, if you feel that there is something wrong with you, then ignore their comments without ignoring the problem. Solve it. Take help if needed. Get over it, and be confident that whatever happens, your life is a matter of your choice. There is no need to be affected by people or what they think about you.

Ref. Read Swami Chinmayananda’s Commentary on Bhagawad Geeta Chapter 18 Verses 42, 43, 44.

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