In the yogic lore there is a saying, ‘If you put one eye on the goal, you will have only one eye to find your way.’ That’s not an efficient way to find your way; it’s better you use both your eyes to find your way.
So it’s always best that we keep our eyes, our body, our mind, everything focused on just one thing. That is when a human being functions at his maximum efficiency.
What do you see?
There’s a beautiful incident in our culture; it’s about Dronacharya. One day Dronacharya was teaching archery to Arjuna and a few other boys. He asked them one by one to look up at the tree, aim and shoot at a wooden bird that was kept on the tree. A small dot was marked on the neck of the bird.
Dronacharya told them to aim at that particular dot and shoot. When they pulled the string and they were just about to shoot Dronacharya asked them to stop. “What do you see?” he asked. “We see the leaves, we see the tree, we see the fruit, we see the bird, we see so many things,” they said—every one said this.
Then it was Arjuna’s chance. When he was ready to shoot, and when Drona asked him, “What do you see?” Arjuna just said, “I see only one dot”. This man gets somewhere because he knows where he is. You simply be where you have to be, focused on what you have to be. Then what has to happen will happen.
Getting what you want
If you want to set any goal, if you are serious about reaching a goal, can you do it if your mind is disorganised? Once your mind gets organised, the way you think is the way you feel—your emotion will get organised. Once your thought and emotion is organised, your energies will get organised in the same direction.
Once your thought, emotion and energies are organised, your very body will get organised. Once all these four are organised in one direction, your ability to create and manifest what you want, to reach your goals becomes phenomenal.
When it comes to creating life situations, career situations and whatever else you need to do with the world around you, you can use the power of the mind to make it happen. Quite effortlessly, without lifting your little finger, you can make things happen just by having a mental focus on what you want.
Want to win?
The modern world has become only goal-oriented, in the sense everybody just ‘wants to win the game.’ Whether its life or sport, they’re only thinking about winning. I feel that’s a big mistake. People don’t win a game because they want to. Who doesn’t want to win? Everybody wants to win. People win a game because they play well, isn’t it?
The correct way to achieve your goal
If you get involved in the expectation of the fruit then you will not take care of the plant. It is not because you desire the fruit that fruit comes to you. Fruit comes to only those who perform action in the best possible way.
So don’t shift your attention to the fruit. If you shift your attention to the fruit, you will obviously not perform your action properly. That does not mean that you shouldn’t have a goal. The very course of action is towards the goal, always—whether it’s a game or a business plan or a spiritual process, it doesn’t matter what. We are working towards a goal. But if you’re too concerned about the goal, you will not nourish the action today, this moment.
It is like you plant a mango tree and you sit in front of the mango sapling every day dreaming about the mangoes that will come, how you will eat them, the sweetness of the mangoes. you imagine and you enjoy the feeling. You imagine how many mangoes will come, how you will sell them, and how you will become a rich man.
You think of all this but you forget to water the plant. So, you will not see mangoes. Instead, if you don’t even think about the mangoes, every day you just enjoy the process of simply nurturing the plant. And every leaf that comes on it is your reward and you just nurture the plant. If you do that mangoes will definitely fall on your head.
If you want the right results, you have to do the right kind of action. If you have to do the right kind of action, then you must be 100 per cent there with what you are doing.