Through the story of his own life, the qualities he embodied and the intuitive reasoning behind his decisions, Adi ji offers insight into the practical question everybody faces, “How do you know whether what you choose or wish to choose, is it the right thing for you or not? How do you find out?”
“You should have the aptitude, you should have the background capability”… but we are talking theory!
You need to actively test out. So that you can even call it…in engineering we call it prototyping. In software methodology, we call it, Agile development, you know, Agile methodology. Have you heard of it? You actively prototype. You conduct some quick experiments that give you something like a reasonable measure with which you can confidently move forward. At least you have some 70% confidence, to move forward. It might not be 100% confidence because there is nothing like that. There is nothing like perfect scenario, but you should have a reasonable level of confidence. For that you should have tried something out in that direction. That is called prototyping, in engineering. You have a grand idea, but you need to test it out. Quickly you do…it might not be the best solution or one with everything integrated, but for now it gives you reasonable confidence to move forward. That is very critical. But in the process, you will observe another important aspect. You will see that not everything resonates with you. At least you will be able to eliminate.
With prototyping you will be able to eliminate before jumping in full time. Otherwise the consequences might be much more difficult to undo. So that is there. So that is why you prototype. In whatever way you can imagine, in whatever way you understand this. You prototype, to get that feel – whether it resonates.
With prototyping you will be able to eliminate before jumping in full time. Otherwise the consequences might be much more difficult to undo. So that is there. So that is why you prototype. In whatever way you can imagine, in whatever way you understand this. You prototype, to get that feel – whether it resonates. Again getting that feel is not a theoretical thing, because you cannot jump to conclusions.
It so happened that I wanted to teach, and everyone, you know, all our colleagues and friends said, “Imagine the scenario, where you go to teach but you are not happy. What will you do? If you come back, the software industry, you would have lost all your experiences. It would be a waste, so what will you do?” Because that was a life path. Complete change. So what will you do? But just that, my reasoning of getting into the software industry itself was to satisfy my parents. I wanted to teach. So I was not actually giving up the software industry. I had already made up my mind only to teach. This was a temporary expedition, because my parents had to be satisfied, I could understand their miserable condition. They had invested everything in my education, and they felt it is not an appropriate career. I could not say immediately that,”No no, I will do only this.” I could not say that, I didn’t have the heart to do that. So temporarily, I had to wait until the appropriate circumstances came where I could just jump in. Till then I had to wait. I had to wait patiently, and how many long years will I have to wait, I didn’t know, at that point in time. When my parents asked me to join the software industry, I had to wait. I waited, I waited, waited, but all the time, being alert, to when I can take the step. So when the first opportunity presented itself, after marriage, I jumped in. This seems like a very cruel strategy, ruthless strategy, but what to do, my parents are not unhappy because of that, so see the reason why I am saying this is not that you should also do this, don’t do it this way, okay? Because your circumstances are unique to you, only you understand it. You apply principles as per your circumstances. But you prototype, it matches, sort of matches, it need not be a full match, so I came to Amrita, is it like a full match? Will everything go as per my expectations? Need not be. But my expectations are resolved.
Raaga-dwesha does not operate and hence you sense the situation, I had no idea that I would be talking Mahabharata and all that. You pick that up along the way. I put in effort to pick that up, otherwise how could I speak to you? I felt it is necessary, I did not have a background in Indian shastras, I put in that effort. So you can imagine what kind of effort would have gone in.
Raaga-dwesha does not operate and hence you sense the situation, I had no idea that I would be talking Mahabharata and all that. You pick that up along the way. I put in effort to pick that up, otherwise how could I speak to you? I felt it is necessary, I did not have a background in Indian shastras, I put in that effort. So you can imagine what kind of effort would have gone in. I am not trained in Mahabharata. I am not trained in anything. But there is a curiosity also, inquisitiveness, enquiry also. So, you put in that effort, rapid effort, you come to a certain level of confidence with respect to your background. You can build in such capabilities. Your background and then you test the waters, and once you are planning to.…you actively sense, you are always alert and open, you are not set. It is not like,”Ah! Ah now everything is.….” It is not that way. You are actively alert and you sense and you act appropriately. So it is not a set idea. It is not the result that you are focussed in, it is more the process, that you are focussed in. And hence the appropriate result emerges, because of your focus in the process. The appropriate result that is best for everything, maybe not the result you imagined. I did not imagine such results at all. because at that time, to whatever understanding I had, to that extent I could project the result. I could not project so much and all that. It was not possible, because I didn’t know at that time, what would be the ground conditions at a future time how would I know? Though certain ground conditions, that I wish to establish in a future time for certain purpose, that I would be working towards. That is a different thing. But what the ground conditions that would be at a future time, you don’t know, and hence you pick up skills, that would make you robust to act along the lines of whatever you are convinced about. You make that robustness a part of you.
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