Ambition is not bad but over-ambition is, especially when it is inspired by jealousy, say all the youngsters interviewed by Dr Anant Mehrotra for krrisha.com this week. This is perfect. But, let’s get deeper into the dynamics.
What is ambition?
Let me put it simply, ambition is an energy bond between what you are and what you want to be. But, then you can’t call it an ambition. It is a pure subject and object relationship, where you strive to become what you are not. What Krishna says in the Bhagwad Gita is that if your desire is to become your goal, and not achieve it, you are on the evolutionary path and there is nothing wrong in it. It is all about becoming and not achieving. Becoming is an inside-out phenomenon. Achievement is outside phenomenon. Becoming is spirituality, it evolves you. Achievement is anti-spirituality, it only gets you the desired without you being deserving them. Ambition to become is evolutionary and the ambition to achieve is devolutionary.
Achievement comes packaged with jealousy, anger, lust and greed. However, becoming comes packaged with pure energy manifesting through your body, senses and mind. Ram was a becomer. Ravan was an achiever. The latter was jealous, angry and greedy to the extent that he never minded violating personal and social laws. He was all the time worried as to somebody would take his achievements away from him. Whereas Ram became what He wanted to —He manifested His energy as a warrior, a sanyasi, an ideal human being, and a king. He was never jealous, angry and greedy. He planned His moves carefully, organised a team of wildlife beings and got His wife Sita released from the clutches of Ravan. This is what is the difference between the evolutionary ambition and the devolutionary one.
Ambition check test
Whenever you have greed, lust and anger, your ambition is devolutionary. What is devolutionary? Anything which brings in negative situations and degenerates you as a human being. It is called नरक in Sanskrit. Krishna says in Sixteenth Discourse, त्रिविधं नरकस्येदं द्वारं नाशनमात्मन: ।काम: क्रोधस्तथा लोभस्तस्मादेतत्त्रयं त्यजेत ।। Lust, anger and greed are the three doorway to devolutionary condition, so give them up. What happens then? Your ambition becomes evolutionary.
How do achievers, or those in the devolutionary path with ambition, think? Krishna reveals it all in the same discourse, shloka 13, इदमद्य मया लब्धमिमं प्राप्स्ये मनोरथं। … “I have achieved or gained it today, I will achieve the next object of my ambition now…”
What it all shows?
It is your birthright to work for and become what you are not, but your drive should be devoid of the three degenerative factors. In fact, these three factors only define achievement, whereas their absence define becoming! You manifest a pure subject-object energy inside-out. That is the reason we synonymise Krishna with Sanskrit words like Shree, Bhagwan etc. Because , He didn’t achieve shree ( Lakshmi, welfare), but He became it. He didn’t achieve god-hood, He became God. He is God Lord Almighty. He became His object. How? He reveals it in discourse ten that he is Arjuna among Pandavas. What does it mean? Like Arjuna, He too would have strived to become Krishna and He became Krishna.
The moral of the story is clear. The ambition which evolves you into your goal is divine .
Editor-In-Chief
Vivek Sharma
Krrisha.com
Ambition is the force that keeps us going. It gives us motivation.
Jealousy is definitely not justified in the name of ambition.
To maintain a balance between ambition and satisfaction one must keep his/her ambition achievable; nurture them with love and care. That is the secret to a satisfied life.
Inference: Ambition is directional force. Ambitions should always be realistic.
Dr. Dona Saha
Ambition is the zeal to succeed in life through hard work and dedication.
Jealousy can never be justified under the pretext of ambition.
By being a content person and continuing to strive for improvement one can maintain a balance between ambition and satisfaction.
Inference: Ambition is zeal to succeed in life. Contentment powered by continued efforts for improvement keeps ambition in check.
Sonal Mehrotra
Ambitions are short term/long term plans in life which help one to achieve one’s goal ultimately.
Jealousy is natural but cannot be justified in the name of ambition.
For maintaining a balance one needs to understand that satisfaction comes from limiting one’s ambition/desires rather than trying to gratify them. We must know our merits & demerits and accordingly define our ambitions. That way one can make a balance between ambition and satisfaction.
Inference: Ambition is planning done to achieve a goal. Knowing ones merits and demerits help keep ambition in check.
Dr. Satyadeo Pandey
Ambition is a desire to get or achieve something in manner of success, honor, power, money and all.
Jealousy can’t be justified in the name of ambition.
Many times peace is hampered when one is over ambitious. Excess of ambition is not good. Socializing, yoga etc are various means to maintain a balance between the two.
Inference: Ambition is desire related to achievements or success. Recreational activities help in correct expression of ambition.
PriyankaTiwari
Ambition is the desire to achieve something or to succeed. Ambition is accompanied with motivation, determination and an internal drive. Ambition is to be understood in the context of those who achieve success due to their inner desire to achieve it and their belief in themselves.
Jealousy and ambition are not the same. One can’t justify jealousy for ambition.
Ambition inspires a person to do something significant in life. But despite reaching great heights of success if a person is not happy or contended then such success loses its meaning. It will become futile. Hence, it is good to be ambitious but not at the cost of satisfaction.
Inference: Ambition is the inner desire to achieve a goal. It is good to be ambitious but not at the cost of one’s satisfaction.
Garima Sahu
Walking down the highway called life, the urge to reach and bypass the next milestones that will keep coming in our way is called ambition.
Ambition and jealousy both encompass two different feelings. Ambition is a positive feeling which drives you to achieve, conquer something good and progressive in life, whereas jealousy restricts your thoughts as it forces you to devote more time in restraining the progress of other individual.
The key to maintain balance is that the individual must not forget that ambition is the product of his/her dreams. Ambitions gives success and success gives satisfaction when it is enjoyed with people around us. Anindividual must set his/her goals such that they push him/her out of the comfort zone but is not far achievable.
Inference: Ambition is a positive feeling which helps us overcome our obstacles and progress in life. Ambitions should push a person out of his comfort zone.
Manali Mehrotra
Ambition is a target which people set for themselves. Jealousy is never justified in the name of ambition. A person should not be jealous of what is achieved by the others since his ambition differs from others. Ambition should be worked out properly by following simple principle—thinkbest and be ready for the worst.
Inference: Ambitions differ from person to person. By following a simple principle—think best and be ready for the worst we can work out our ambitions.
Anurag Srivastava
Ambition is the goal that we have set for ourselves and want to achieve at any cost, where we put in all our efforts and hard work to accomplish it; and if accomplished, gives us immense joy.
I don't think that jealousy is justified in the name of ambition because ambition is something we have chosen for ourselves keeping in mind the benefits and loses of it. Each step taken towards achieving it is a personal growth, so there is no point of comparing with others, because the moment we compare, we feel jealous. If we enjoy what we do, the balance is automatically maintained. i.e. if we set our ambition keeping in mind our abilities, happiness and well-being we will we satisfied in our life because there is no additional burden and there won't be a need to put in that extra effort to strike the perfect balance.
Inference: Ambition is goal that we set up for ourselves which gives us joy after fulfillment. Enjoying the journey is more important to remain satisfied.
Tiasha Sen
Ambition is a strong desire to acquire a self-constructed goal for the sake of upholding one’s identity (genetic). When such strong desires become our intent they are automatically executed by our will adding to our achievements. Though the normal trend which can be observed is hopeless efforts derived not from our intent rather our insecurities of not meeting to a hypothetical parameter. Jealousy is not justified in the name of ambition since it is generated out of insecurities. When our motivating force behind a goal becomes not our insecurities rather our intent we would remain unaffected by anybody’s progress and start making some progress of our own. In my opinion consistency is the key to make our ambitions our intents.
Inference: Ambition is a strong desire to acquire a goal for the sake of upholding one’s identity (genetic). Consistency is the key to make our ambitions our intents.
Mansi Vaish
Ambition is the direction that we want to provide to our caliber and potential as per our analysis of it. No, jealousy cannot be justified in the name of ambition or of competition. Balance is required between two extreme ends; however ambition and satisfaction are closely related. Rational discernment of meeting the set goals yields satisfaction.
Inference: Ambition is the direction that we want to provide to our caliber. Rational discernment of meeting the set goals yields satisfaction.
Bhavini Dubey
Compiled by Dr. Anant Mehrotra
Ambition is the desire to achieve more, to cross another milestone after one reaches a particular milestone. Ambition is the motivation behind working harder. It is inherently a positive emotion but as it has been said that excess of anything is bad and this holds true especially for ambition.
One cannot justify jealousy in the name of ambition as the two are entirely different though on its face value it seems that both achieve the same goal and jealousy nourishes ambition but in fact it’s not so. Ambition is a proactive ambition and is internally driven. That is to say the person has his/her own ambitions irrespective of the ambitions of the other person. On the country jealousy is reactive and hence an externally driven emotion. If another person is doing a particular thing in a better way, then as a reaction we try to imitate or stop the person. In either way we will only follow that person and so will be behind that person.
Ambition even if achieved by jealousy will be short lived and will not give peace and satisfaction.