Have you got dynamism? If you have got dynamism, what do you mean by the word dynamism? Is it character, is it intelligence, is it the energetic nature of an individual to get out and get things done in the world outside? What is it? Dynamism (Ojas in Sanskrit) is life that expresses through any organism. All dynamism drains away from an organism when it is dead.
The difference between the living and dead is the presence or absence of this factor called dynamism. By the term dynamism, we are not meaning a mere thought¬less brute force in you. There is dynamism in a living plant; there is dynamism in an animal. When a plant is dead all its vitality and dynamism ebbs away and it becomes inert. But the dynamism in a plant or animal is a natural explosion of life, given a chance. It is only man, because he has got an intelligence, who can intensify this dynamism. He can sustain the dynamism. He can apply dynamism. The poor plant or animal cannot give to it a direction, purposefulness. Plants and animals cannot achieve anything. Man can direct it, develop it, give it a direction, a purpose and thus bring out new factors of achievement in the world around. There is dynamism in all of us. The only thing is it may be more in one individual and less in the other*. If we know the art of stepping up this dynamism that is already in us, we can beam it forth into the era of history in which we live, and not only can we carve out our own achievements, but through the achievements of others we can enrich the society, the community, the country and the world itself. So, dynamism is the expression of life but life in every one of you is not a thing you cultivated.
Life is a gift; functioning through our equipments, our organisms, our physiological structures, our psychological equipments. There is a dynamism coming out and it is with this dynamism in the human personality that men can achieve great things. In the past they did, in the present they are doing and in the future they shall do. You become the greatest criminal in the world or the greatest saint or sage in the world; it is a matter whether you are scoring in the negative or positive fields of life. All achievements are gained by this dynamism. The entire history of man is this play of dynamism. If an Einstein carved out a niche for himself, if man has been able to land on the moon; all these great feats, achievements, industrial, technological, economic and political revolutions that we have done and achieved, new progress that we have gained, all achievements of culture, art, music are all the expression, stupendous expression of this dynamism. The genius is not the guy who has a large head, or a big belly, horns or a tail. But when we say that Dr. Radhakrishnan is a brilliant scholar, Tagore a great poet, what is that extra brilliance, that extra beauty in them. It is all their extra dynamism, in their chosen field of endeavor. So in each of us there is dynamism. The source of dynamism is a’ gift. We did not ask for it. It has just been given. With this dynamism each one of us achieves great things in the world for himself and for the society. The total dynamism of a generation makes the history of the nation or the world.
Where you will apply this dynamism will be chosen by each one of you. One may use it in economics; the other may use it in art and the third in science, the fourth in cultural or spiritual fields. The dynamic young man Narendra applied it is the spiritual field and out of it came Swami Vivekananda. A stupid guy will not use this dynamism in any field except destroying food and making it filth. This dynamism that is present in you young students today is mighty, and it is the secret path by which you will recreate your world for your future. It is not mine or of our generation. We belong to the old. It is time to plough us into the earth. It belongs to you. And today you know your world. Everything is in a crisis and in order to meet this crisis you need this dynamism. And this dynamism that expresses through you is divine and it is God-given strength and power in you to face life. In life there is always tension. If there were no tensions you would not have been in this plane of consciousness. When it becomes a challenge to your life it adds charm to your existence.
Newspapers today are always full of crises: population crisis, political crisis, food crisis. What is this crisis? There is a challenge around all of us. When I do not find any solution then the challenge itself becomes a crisis. Today the world is full of crises. Therefore, you need as no other generation has ever needed the maximum of this dynamism. This dynamism cannot come to you. The modern economics have no plan to develop this dy¬namism. It is inherent in human beings, the manpower in you. None of the known sciences can ensure or try to solve this problem, or even discuss it. It is only in spiritual science, in religious textbooks that we find this secret lies scattered—the Bible, Koran, Upanishads, Bhagawad Geeta etc. In these sacred textbooks you find the secret and it is now urgently needed because of the thick darkness, dark abyss. In this crisis the world is sinking along with you young students and it is for you to salvage the world, to create a better harmony and better system around you and live comfortably. So this dynamism, which is in all of you, how are we to cultivate it, to generate it. Generation alone is not sufficient; we should also learn to conserve it and apply it intelligently.
How can we generate this dynamism which is already there? It is not a thing you beg from others to give you. You have only to explore and exploit. How can we do it? Look at the life history of all great men in the past. In whatever field of activity you look one common thing you will find in all the biographies or autobiographies of great men who have achieved great things for themselves. In everyone you will find, to begin with they were common ordinary average children. They did not come in the monsoon, directly down and said, “Believe me children, I have got a solution for your problems”. They were born like ordinary babies. Mahatma Gandhi was not a great man till the late 20’s. He went to England to become a barrister-at-law. Anyone could go there to be¬come a barrister-at-law at that time. He would certainly not have been a successful lawyer. He had neither the stature nor the personality. He was a shy guy. But during the 1820’s when he visited Africa and then re¬turned to India he found for himself a goal and an ideal, the freedom of his country, the freedom for the millions in his nation. Once he had an ideal he stuck to it. So was the prince of Kapilavastu. He was so well protected by his family that he did not know till the age of 25 that there is disease and old age in this world. He did not know all this until he went for a spree in the evening drive and he saw things on the road. Then he started understanding them. Once he got to know these great problems he said he was going to find a solution to that, a goal and an ideal was before him. That is how Siddhartha came out as the great Buddha. Any mighty man’s life you read they were all born normal ordinary human beings. Some of them were even below average. But once they got the ideal, a goal, a purpose and an altar, they could draw endless enthusiasm and energy from that ideal and express it in their fields, chosen field of activities and not only have they carved out an altar of greatness in the world but also lifted the entire generation. It is a tragedy that our education does not give us a glimpse of our ideal. Our ideal is not big enough. Our ideal now is a comfortable life after education, i.e. to get a job; it must be a comfortable job, white collared job. A lot of pay and little work, and then marriage, preferably to a rich man’s only daughter. Then they can live comfortably. It is all. No other great vision, vision of your world or your community, your country, the world around. When your ideal is so low, your enthusiasm so low, how can you achieve great things. The higher the tank the greater the pressure. The higher is your ideal the greater is the inflow of the energy and vitality. When we are talking about that ideal, please do not get frightened that the ideal is too big and beyond your reach. If you can find an ideal which you cannot reach your problem is solved. Once you reach the ideal, things end from then onwards, decadence starts. Our entire ideal before independence was political freedom. We got independence in 1947. When we got independence, the goal was over. Everybody sat down, hanging on to chairs. Even now they are hanging on chairs. The glory is not in reaching the ideal; the beauty is in striving to reach the ideal. You may not reach the ideal. It does not matter. Keep up the ideal; that is what the Upanishads say. The ideal is spiritual unfoldment. Not everyone can reach it. Among thousands only some people come to know. It is not the goal which everybody can reach immediately. Do not be afraid by this philosophy that is going on now that realism is more important than idealism. The whole world has gone forward because of idealism. In this century, earlier, Karl Marx wrote his Das Kapital. Imagine yourself in those times when Russia was in the peak of imperialism. There was one man sitting in the libraries of London, writing a thesis on the power of the poor; poor can organize, everything belongs to the poor etc. His close friends never believed that his ideal will be accomplished. None at that time could believe his theory. Yet fifty years after the book is written today much of what has been written in the book has come to be accepted. Non-violence was the ideal of Mahatma Gandhi. He was laughed at by Patel and others. They were against this ideal of non-violence. But when he launched the movement they joined it, because there was that dynamism that was generated in the country and he did achieve his goal, that ideal. The ideal of today becomes the reality of tomorrow. So do not get the wonderful fear, a ghost like fear of being against idealism. To the dynamic and enthusiastic man idealism gives enthusiasm. What that ideal is not for me or anybody else to say. Each one must discover his own ideal. It is for you to make a decision about your ideal. It is for you to make a decision whether to become a painter, or scientist, musician or a glorious historian. You have to choose, you have to discover your inclination from it. Life is not smooth for everyone at any time. In the past it was not, in the present it is not and in the future it shall not. But through ups and downs in life,-we shall continuously discover courage, balance and equipoise to face all to reach our destination. Have faith in God and everything will be smooth. The ideal consoles, gives you extra energy, extra vitality or dynamism necessary to face the problem and you go forward. In Sanskrit there is a verse which says the dullest fool is he who never undertakes anything because even before he undertakes he knows that there will be problems. They will not start because they are expecting problems. Then there are mediocre people who will undertake anything. But the moment they see the first obstacle they return back home. The real men of achievement are people, the more the obstacles they meet the more vigorous they become in meeting them and they reach their destination. Let us have that consistency, self-reliance and enthusiasm and energy and that we generally gain from the goal from which all of us draw our inspiration.
Let us look back to a typical example of the recent past. What a dynamism and energy was generated in recent years in America. Einstein made his greatest discovery in the late 1930s. He was busy in the pursuit of this knowledge. On the other hand was Stalin of Russia who was wiping out a million and a half of his country¬men in the name of discipline, an ideal. It could not have been that such a learned man like Einstein did not know about it or heard about it. He must have read newspapers. At that time he was in Germany in late 1920’s. Disturbed by what he read in the newspapers if he had left the laboratory and took a flag and started doing “Inqualab Zindabad”, he could have easily gathered 20 others from the town and organized a procession registering his protest against Stalin and what he was doing. Had he done it, you and I could not have been justified in condemning him. The theory of relativity that he discovered thereafter, that there is energy in the atom which he discovered mathematically, we would have waited for it for perhaps another century. The world would not have achieved the landing of a man on the moon. The rocket would not have the thrust. Think. What a waste it would have been. In our country many of the potentially might-have-been scientists, artists and authors have become unemployed and are going about as local leaders because they have not discovered the dynamism in them. When we discover this energy, the vitality, this should not be dissipated in dissimilar channels. Our literature says live in tapas. Do not allow this enthusiasm and dyna¬mism to be dissipated through sense gratification. Learn to control it and economize on it. Conserve the vitality and use it for achieving a goal. It need not necessarily be religious and spiritual. It may be a material ideal, political view and economic theory, scientific ambition or cultural glory in itself but the goal is neces¬sary. He who discovers that ideal, he is going to be tomorrow’s man. Set your mind on an ideal, hook on to it, and thus inspired, discover and generate this dynamism.
(A talk delivered by Swamiji to college students at a spiritual camp organized by the Bhagawan Sri Satya Sai Seva Samiti in New Delhi)