Goals and Needs: The Motivators and Invigorators

- Govinda Neupane

(This is my reply to my two friends. I had sent the email on 29 July 2009. I have taken out some personal references.)

It was wonderful to read your perceptions/analysis on independence. In my opinion, goals and needs are the two driving factors, which help/compel our intellectual as well physical energy to flow continuosly and ensure our endeavors to accelerate progress by formulating certain patterns.

The goals are related to ideals, visions, aspirations, wishes and anticipations. The goals are more subjective and spiritual elements. And, they guide us. They could be a mix of imagery and imaginations in essence and elastic in nature. They are the soul of our physical being. They drive us continuously. Some people place faith on supernatural command and control system. Thus, they believe in God(s), Allah or Almighty and their thought processes get aligned with what good things the God (s) or Allah or Almighty has asked them to accomplish in life for the good of the larger humanity. They are traditionally put in a basket labeled as "religious people". One most important characteristic of these people is that they refrain from bad things and at least try always to deliver something good. Here, I like to add that those Hindus who offer kilos of gold to Ganapati Bappa at Siddhivinayak temple in Mumbai and turn head to opposite direction while confronting with a suffering humanity are not "religious people", at all. The same applies to just ritualistic Muslims, Christians and Buddhists. I respect the "religious peoples" who have a spiritual goal of loving the God (s) or Allah or Almighty and they try with devotion to serve the suffering humanity so as to serve Him.

My friend, you have rightly said about my faith that I started with revolutionary atheism and turned to something different. I narrate the story of Abu Ben Adam (or Adhem? I forgot the exact last name. The story I had read in my 10th standard in the form of a poem.) The story is like this:

One dark night, an angel entered into the room, where Abu was sleeping deep. There was the glittering light as if 100s of light bulbs were switched on at one go. Due to this flooding light, Abu woke up. He was surprised seeing the angel in front of him. He asked the angel about the reason of his coming. The angel replied that he is in this village to prepare a list of people who love the God. Abu asked if his name was there. The angel replied in negative. Abu told that the angel should have another list too, which could have the names of people who love their neighbors and serve them with devotion. The angel disappeared after saying Abu that he will convey his message to the God. Abu was known for his devoted service to his neighbors and any other person suffering. The next night the angel again came to see Abu. Abu asked him if the God agreed to his proposal. The angel told that though the God did not agree to his proposal but he said that Abu's name was on the top of the list whom the God loves. Abu surprisingly told the angel that he had never remembered the God at any moment since he had been in this world. The angel replied that the God was everywhere spread and by loving, caring and serving suffering humanity; Abu served and loved the God. The angel told that the God was very happy with Abu and had asked him to convey his message that the God loves Abu very much. Abu neither agreed, nor disagreed. He was simply astonished.

So, my ideal is Abu and I appreciate his way of doing things. I don't know this is being religious or not, but when I see a suffering humanity, I cry. May be, I could not do much physically or financially, but my mind and heart share their sufferings intellectually and emotionally.

Now, I will share my understanding on hardware - the needs. These are the foundations from where we could move forward to address our goals. So, they are important, valuable and first in the chain of physical as well as intellectual sustainability. Attending to our needs is immediate, tangible and worthwhile. If we like to help cleaning a dirty neighborhood, we should eat to generate physical energy. I simply discard many prescriptions of some of the Hindu Saints who consider these worldly behaviors as inferior. That is not right. A person is doing great when he/she attends office and chanalizes his/her intellectual energy to help others including the organizations. Also, by that work, they could be contributing in the growth process of their own near and dear. This is a great job. Therefore, I think, it would be a marvelous situation when we could align both our goals and need-related actions in the same direction. Success is there when we align them better, difficulties are there where alignment is not well balanced and failures are there where there is no alignment at all.

Now, I will add a few sentences regarding independence. My friend, neither you are independent nor I am. Independence is, now, an inapplicable term in practical sense. All of us are interdependent. Our situations are no different than that the situation of any other person. Even we could not plan independently. Now, encompassing family, community and organizations; interdependence has penetrated individuals too. We are compelled to balance between competing needs and goals. So, when we select a course, we have to go through an analytical process that helps us to select the particular one giving enough reasons. So, independence is a relative term and reflects a very temporary phenomenon, whereas interdependence is all pervading and permanent. The goals and needs drive us and we move forward or backward in relation to the situations we are in. So, we are fundamentally interdependent.

My friend, you have said that you may not do that good if you would be a freelancer. I think that it is just your perception and not the expression of self-realization. For a person like you, who is so compassionate, disciplined and unpretending; it is quite possible that you could very well live meaningfully and productively given such situation arises.

July 29, 2009