Question: My question is about being ambitious. When you are ambitious, you take some steps at the expense of others…
Sadhguru: You were saying, “at the expense of someone.” Everything is at the expense of someone. The house in which you live may be very comfortable for you. But to build a building like that, I do not know how many worms, insects and other creatures have suffered immensely. We have committed genocides. If we are conscious of this, we will do things only to the extent necessary – nothing more, nothing less.
Who is to decide how much is necessary? You decide, but from your humanity, not from your vanity. If you decide from your humanity, you will make a decision. Is it the right choice? The ants, the bees and the birds, most of the creatures on the planet will not agree with us. But as they have to live, we also have to live.
But we must understand, as we have to live, they also have to live. If we forget this, that is when we do things which ultimately destroy us, not them. Scientific studies say that if all the insects on the planet disappear today, in just a few years’ time, all life on the planet will be wiped out.
If you understand this, you know the bacteria, the insects, the animals, the trees and the plants should stay healthy. Otherwise we will not exist. Do it either out of your humanity or at least out of your intelligence. But if you do not have an overflowing sense of humanity or the intelligence to see far enough, you become a disaster.
Once in a way, if we cross pathways and it is at someone’s cost – all right, we have to live with it. But every moment of our life, whatever we do, if it is at someone else’s cost, then we will have to change our activity.
Ambition is essentially a mission, but it is about you. It is good to have a mission, but let it not be about you. If your mission is about everything around you, you will see, anyway you will get the windfall. There is no question about it.
There is no one in the world who is devoid of humanity. For one person, humanity means himself. For another person, his idea of humanity is him and his family. Another man’s sense of humanity is him and his community. Another man’s humanity is him and his nation. Another man’s sense of humanity is all of humanity. So it is only a question of scale.
Your thought, your emotion, your humanity must happen at the highest scale, because only then your activity will not be at someone else’s cost. If you are ambitious, why don’t you do it in a big way? There is no price to it, and it is not at anybody’s cost.
