At Kamarpukur, I have seen the mongoose living in its hole up in the wall. It feels snug there. Sometimes people tie a brick to its tail; then the pull of the brick makes it come out of its hole. Every time the mongoose tries to be comfortable inside the hole, it has to come out because of the pull of the brick.
Such is the effect of brooding on worldly objects that it makes the yogi stray from the path of yoga.
There was a man who knew eighty two postures and talked big about yoga-samadhi. But inwardly he was drawn to ‘woman and gold’. Once he found a bank-note worth several thousand rupees.
He could not resist the temptation, and swallowed it, thinking he would get it out somehow later on. The note was got out of him alright, but he was sent to jail for three years.
– Tales and Parables of Sri Ramakrishna
Being an UPSC aspirant is no less than being a Yogi. You need to consider it as Sadhana. A path of realization of your Ambitions as well as your parents’ Dreams. But what happens is we miss the consistency many a times. We struggle hard to reach the peak of the preparation. But at times, we fall into valleys of low phase. UPSC demands a reliable as well as consistent aspirant. You need to maintain a sustainable journey. Hence, to keep our preparation in a steady phase we need to have good Self-Motivation, we need to consistently remember ‘why we started this journey, and we need to have that Die-Hard mental framework.
But above all, what we should maintain is the purity of purpose and conduct. We should try hard to remove the brick which are being tied into our tail. The craving for sensual pleasures, the (bad) taste of entertainment, the love for gossips, the urge to take UPSC as second preference in life, the thoughts of binge watching/eating etc., So On and So forth. Our thoughts, emotions and behaviors should in consonance with one another. It is said that when the soil is fertile and healthy, when the climate is good, the grass grows by itself. Likewise, when our Purpose is pure, when our conduct is neat, when our emotions are mindful, the success will happen by itself.
