‘Need to balance ambition with spirituality’

Speaking about striking a balance between ambition and spirituality, spiritual leader and founder chairman of the Prasanna Trust, Swami Sukhabodhananda, explained the difference between ambition and aspiration at an event titled How to Balance Ambition with Spirituality, held as part the Tata Literature Live! Festival and sponsored by the KK Birla Foundation.

“If your ambition is to go towards joy, you’ve messed it up,” he said. “That means that your happiness is scheduled for the future, which implies that your present is quietly unhappy.”

He explained that, in a state of deep sleep, a person is always content, which means that there is happiness within everyone. An acknowledgment of this happiness in the present will lead to having desires and ambition ‘out of joy’, instead of having them ‘for joy’.

A purified ambition, in that sense, converts to aspiration, which relates to creativity.

He also said that spirituality should not be a blind belief, but an experience.

“Religion has become belief, and that is the greatest crime we have done to it,” he said.

The Tata Literature Live! Festival is being held at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Nariman Point, Mumbai.