What is achievement?

[Guest guest]

Is achievement popularity? Is it fame? Is it wealth? Is it academic

excellence? Is it achievement in a specific skill or branch of

knowledge? Is it success? Is it recognition?

Is it social approval? Is it affluence? Is it influence?

 

 

Achievement in a specific and limited sense may be any and all of

these.But does achievement begin or end with any of these? What is

the essence of achievement? What is the hallmark of all forms of

achievement?

 

 

The hallmark and essence of every form of achievement and peak

performance,to my mind,is a capacity for complete absorption in the

task at hand.The athlete,the surgeon,housewife,the writer,every

individual among millions of such individuals on this planet,is at

their moment of achievement,absorption and peak performance,

completely engrossed in the moment,in the activity at hand.This

capacity of the mind for complete absorption enables achievement.

Complete absorption is a characteristic of the mind that has the

freedom born of total awareness,pure perception,without the division

of the observer and the observed.This unitive,total awareness,this

complete absorption of the mind, is the source of all achievement

everywhere.

 

 

 

The specific nature of the activity is secondary.Whether it is

washing the dishes,watering the plants,baking a cake,winning a

championship or being a head of state,what characterizes peak

performance,excellence,love,effortless ease and supreme contentment

is the complete absorption of the mind in the task at hand.

This capacity and absorption,moment to moment,every moment of our

lives,in all our activities,great and small,in success and failure,in

victory and defeat,in honour and dishonour,in prosperity and

adversity,in happiness and sorrow,this unbroken absorption of the

mind is,to me,the essence and basis of all achievement.

 

The achievement of wealth,by itself,is an achievement in a limited

sense.How that wealth has been earned,how it will be spent and

utilized,what effect it has on the individual's development

and the course of his life-all these are as important as the wealth

itself.Most important,is there contentment? Is there awareness from

moment to moment? Or is the accumulation of wealth, the beginning of

the end? Does wealth,its blinding quality,its quality of fostering

attachment and greed,will these eventually hamper the individual's

development,his evolution,his growth,his ability to be absorbed and

remain absorbed in an activity that gives him pleasure and fosters

his inner growth? Wealth,by itself,is neutral.Its use and the effect

on the individual's life and development is the key to its value in

his life.

 

 

 

The same holds good for all external symbols of success-

status,popularity,fame,recognition etc-do they contribute to the

further development of the individual or do they arrest his growth

and drag him downhill? Material wealth,rightly earned,is a

byproduct of excellence and ability in some form.Therefore,the

individual's continuing excellence and ability is fundamental.This,

however,is not judged merely by his external status symbols.

Is he contented,is he happy,is he peaceful,free from conflict,from

the burden of anxieties? Is he wrapped up in his own small world of

petty likes and dislikes,pride,prejudice,egoism and so on? Or is he

free from these? Does his environment and his external status

and achievement further his inner growth or hinder it? Is he

following his own thinking,his conscious choice or is he merely

acting as a conditioned animal,conditioned to achieve and succeed,a

joyless performing machine? These are some of the questions which

come to mind.

 

 

 

Wealth springs from virtue.In other words,success is a byproduct of

excellence in our chosen field.What is primary,however,is our inner

contentment and joy.This comes from continuing challenges,excellence

and achievement,from moment to moment.This comes from awareness of

ourselves and our world-people,places,events-awareness and absorption

from moment to moment.This awareness and absorption may often

be,invisible and meaningless to a society neck deep in

superficialities and which glorifies the symbols of success.This

society,through conformity,through institutions,through

media,through education,through sheer weight of numbers,often

subverts the process of self awareness and discovery.These forces

foster denial,disownment and self alienation in an effort to

achieve mindless conformity and glorify the symbols of

success.Herein,lies the ultimate challenge for every individual.

In a quest for complete self awareness,he stands complete alone.

 

 

 

Finally,the important turnaround comes when a man assesses his own

inner world,his mind,the happiness and sorrow there,the success and

the failures there and focuses his attention and awareness on

these.At this stage,his self development,in external terms,takes a

back seat,as he goes to the source of his joys and sorrows,his trials

and his tribulations,his own mind.

 

 

 

This turnaround,maybe unseen and unfelt by others,is also

development,achievement.A single advance on this steep climb may be a

giant achievement,achieved after many failures.Indeed,the slippery

slopes of our conditioning,thinking habits,likes and

dislikes,pride,prejudice and egoism,our fears,anxieties,

insecurities,are much more treachous territory than arduous mountain

climbing,for the man seeking to be completely aware.Since the

challenge is enormous,so will be the achievement.

 

 

This achievement has little to do with symbols and externals.

However,it will profoundly impact the course of our entire life and

every single detail in it.The impact will be far reaching and

revolutionary,within ourselves.

 

 

How can we become aware of the terrain of our own mind,the steep

slopes and ravines,the elation and dejection,likes and dislikes,the

dichotomies,the patterns,the whole process of conditoning,the

fragmentation,the thought,the seeking,which thwart total

peace,contentment and joy within ourselves here and now? How can our

minds know a wholeness which external symbols cannot bring?

 

 

 

Again,there is no method but our own awareness,constant

observation,unbroken discrimination,detachment and faith in

ourselves,to observe our own minds,understand the processes therein

and be free.To me,this freedom born of complete self awareness and

understanding is achievement.Achievement,in the final analysis,is not

what we have but what we are.

 

 

Ashok Gollerkeri

SharingForSelfEnquiry/

[leyh]

His Divine Grace A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada's extremely simple (but not simplistic) definition of real achievement:

 

"The success of human form of life is to understand this thing: our relationship with God. And we should act in relationship with God. Then our success of life will be achieved."(Lecture Engagement at Birla House Bombay, December 17, 1975)

[Guest guest]

wow.. another bit of mundane pop psychology.

 

Without knowledge of the eternal,the temporal

is not understood in it's true light.

[Guest guest]

Pop Pyschology?What is glaring absent in the article that started this thread?Dependence on God.

 

You cannot even achieve your next breath without the allowance of the Supreme Lord.Not even if your mind is one pointed on its attainment.

 

 

[stonehearted]

Although not quite as important as dependence on God, another thing glaringly missing in the original essay is spaces after commas. When we write, we need to have something worth saying, and we also need to present it in a way others can easily understand. Ignoring orthographic and typographic conventions makes readers work harder than necessary (or ignore your writing).

[Guest guest]

...take the essence...if you can.