Ranveer Singh: Hi. I’m Ranveer Singh and I want to know the truth about ambition. I find myself to be ambitious. And sometimes I wonder, is it a good thing? Is it a bad thing? How is it affecting me? How is it affecting other people?
Sadhguru: Well, Ranveer is saying he’s very ambitious. But fortunately, he’s still kept his playfulness in his ambition. Because generally ambitious people become [serious]. In the beginning they carry a constipated face. As life progresses they will become grave [very serious]. Practicing the final pose. All their life.
Because you make up something in your mind, which you call as ambition, it’s just a thought. Now, you put so much of your life energy into it, that your very life becomes about that one thought that you have. Believe me, no thought is worth investing your entire life – no thought.
Essentially, right from kindergarten, teachers and parents are keying children up. You must be number 1, the lowest number in the number system. And this number 1 slowly translates into ambition. It may take on various forms, but essentially, number 1 will remain in the scheme of ambition. But, the reason why people take to ambition is, they do not know how else to propel themselves to success. How to propel myself to success without fixing a goal. This is the fundamental question.
Is ambition right or wrong? It’s neither right nor wrong. It’s just very limited
Is ambition right or wrong? It’s neither right nor wrong. It’s just very limited, because what ambition can you have. Whatever you know right now, maybe multiplied by 10 is your ambition. If you’re very brave, you will multiply by 100. If you’re little foolhardy, you will multiply it by a million. But, it’s just an expansion of what you already know. You cannot have an ambition, about something that you do not know at all. If absolutely new possibilities need to happen in one’s life, above all, if human genius has to unfold, it is very important that we do not create an ambitious world. But, we create a very joyful and involved world.
If you are very joyful and absolutely involved in whatever you’re doing, depending upon the capacities that are there within us, we will go as far as we can go. Your entire business is to constantly upgrade this [self] machine, so that it will be at a higher level of function in every moment of activity – whatever you are doing.
Do not limit yourself with ambition. Because a human being is a limitless possibility
So, for Ranveer, and everybody – for me, you are not ambitious enough. If you don’t fix anything, but keep this [self] on full speed, all the time – let’s see where it goes. Who knows where it will go! Maybe it will go in places that you have never imagined possible. If only what you imagined happened, what a poor life it would be!
So, do not limit yourself with ambition. Because a human being is a limitless possibility. Life is about exploring that possibility.
