Universal Laws of Failure

Belgaum Ashrama Youth Convention

Universal Laws of Failure

Om sthapakaya cha, sarvadharma svarupine
Avatara varishthaya, Ramakrishnaya te namaha.
Respected Secretary Maharaj, respected maharajjis assembled here, distinguished guests on the
stage, and dear students, today is the 1st day of the 11th Annual Celebrations of Ramakrishna Mission
Ashrama, Belgaum. We are participating in the Youth Convention.
Ten years ago, I was here in this Ashrama. Now I have come from Belur Math. At Belur Math,
we have a Polytechnic College called Ramakrishna Mission Shilpamandira, where I am presently serving.
Today, I will be speaking to you all on the topic: Universal Laws of Failure.
When I told my friends that I would speak on this topic, some of them expressed their objections.
Some said that I was looking for sensationalism by choosing a sensational and controversial topic.
Let me explain my reasons for choosing this topic: You see, I have at least three reasons for
choosing this topic:
Firstly, for one thing, it is easier to speak about failure than success because role models are
more! Look around us. See the ratio of losers to winners! Since we have more people failing than
winning, it will be easier for us to derive the universal laws that govern failure. Success, however, is a
very rare phenomenon. Success is an exception. Hence, if you derive the universal laws of success, you
will base them on unstable grounds and the generalizations. Hence, they may be sometimes a bit farfetched!
Secondly, long ago, I read a wise man say, Make friends with fools, you can learn a lot from
them. I thought about it. What can we indeed learn from a fool? There is one thing that we can indeed
learn from a fool. We can learn how not to behave from him. Study how he behaves and avoid all those!
We can do that learning from a fool.
Thirdly, I have yet another very important reason for choosing this topic. You see, today, I will be
placing before you a mirror. Look at yourself in that mirror. You shouldnt be able to see yourself in that
mirror. If you find you are following one or more of the Laws that I will be explaining to you, you will be
able to see yourself in that mirror and you can be sure that you are on the highway to failure. If you seek
success in your life, then you will have to do the opposite of these laws.
So, let us start studying failure and derive our benefit from that now.
The First Law of Failure is Do not have a goal in your life. It is better to be as vague about
your lifes goal as possible, if you wish to fail. In fact, the greater the clarity you have about your lifes
goal, your chances of failure become so much more remote. Listen to a story. An absent minded professor
once entered into a taxi in a great hurry and told the driver, Go as fast as you can. After some time, the
professor realized that he hadnt told the driver the destination. He asked him, Did I tell you where to
go? No Sir. But I am going as fast as I can. Now, this is the basic requirement for failure. You must not
decide where you want to be ten years from now. But, dont spare any effort in your journey. Keep going,
although you have absolutely no idea where you are going.
Now, some times, we find that people do have some idea of their goal in life, but then the goal is
so far-fetched that it is impossible to reach it in one lifetime. That is as good as having no goals at all! I
have a name for such goals impossible goals. Be as disorganized and haphazard in your life as possible.
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Having an impossible goal is as good as having no goal at all. Havent you seen examples of what I am
saying here? A boy gets joy playing cricket on the street with his friends in the evening and dreams he
will be an international cricket player! A girl is able to sing some film song, that too only two lines of the
song, and people in the house start dreaming of a singing career for the child! Some of you may object
saying, Swamiji, isnt dreaming good? Shouldnt we dream? Yes, indeed you should dream. However,
dream realistic dreams. Dont dream nonsense dreams. Dont live in a half-asleep state. You dream in a
half-asleep state. Dont live in that state. You need to be wide-awake to get your dream fulfilled. Havent
you seen how people cannot wake up at a time they have decided at night and they dream of becoming
doctors, who may have to go without sleep for hours together?
Dreams need thorough follow-up. Systematically, your dream must be broken down into a series
of achievable goals and time-frames must be fixed. Regularly you will need to review where you are and
what else you need to do to go forward. Another problem we face in our lives is we try to copy our goals
from someone else, perhaps from our parents or someone else we see from the newspapers. That is a very
good example of an impossible goal. You may learn from anybody and everybody, but never should you
try to become like anyone else.
Secondly, all losers have great faith. They all believe that they simply cannot achieve anything in
life. That sort of strong belief is essential for failure. Some friends may tell you that you are capable of
doing something. But never listen to them. Believe instead in your incompetence. You are simply
incapable of achieving anything in life. And how can you? Luck doesnt favor you. Always it has been
the story that just when it seemed that you would achieve something, luck didnt back you. You never get
the break. So, the Second Law of Failure may be expressed like this: Have no faith in yourself. Strongly
believe that you cannot achieve anything in life.
The Third Law of Failure is: Belittle yourself; hate yourself. You all understand this word
belittle, dont you? How can I ever achieve this? Do I have the capacity for doing this? We are a strange
people in India, you know. If someone else says we are worthless, we fight back. Nevertheless, every day
we tell ourselves within our own mind that we are worthless! Well, we dont really hate ourselves, do we?
If we hated ourselves, how do you explain the great success of the cosmetic and fashion industry! But,
what I mean by hating yourself is something deeper, not skin-deep. I refer to the constant inner
conversation we hold with ourselves inside our own mind.
Eric Fromm, the famous psychologist said that most of us have a Will to fail. He said that most
of us create various obstacles for ourselves and thus we prevent ourselves from achieving anything
substantial in our lives. This is important to note, for this marvelous capacity that each of us have should
be put to full use, else we cannot fail properly. Always, we ourselves prepare the way for our failure.
Why? Because we do not want to succeed. Success is terrifying. Long ago, I read a beautiful cartoon
Calvin & Hobbes. It is about a small boy. He is in school. The next child had A+ grade and was very
happy. This fellow had a D- and was happier than that A+ child was. Therefore, that child asks him, Why
are you happy with D-? Calvin says, You got A+. You will have to struggle very hard to maintain your
A+ grade. I, on the other hand have a very low grade D-. My life will be easier than yours! This is the
problem. We all think success is something we get once and then we do not have to do anything further.
No. Success comes from hard work and it requires more hard work to maintain success. We are afraid of
all that hard work! Hence, we ourselves dont want us to succeed. We can always blame others for our
failure and feel happy and holy about ourselves.
Listen to a story. Once upon a time, all the animals lived in great harmony. Enmity between
animals was completely forgotten. During those times, a goat had once gone to the forest to collect some
fruits and was returning home. It became dark and was afraid of walking alone in the forest. Luckily, a
tiger from the same village as that goat came by that road and seeing the goat, the tiger said, Dear
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Universal Laws of Failure

Belgaum Ashrama Youth Convention

brother, I will accompany you. You have nothing to fear. Let us go together. After sometime, the goat
said, I am afraid that you may eat me up. The tiger said, Are you out of your mind? Dont you see me?
I have a spear, a bucket, a bird and a wild cat in my hands. I had gone hunting for my family. How can I
eat you with my hands so full? After some time the goat said, I was just thinking; maybe you will drive
the spear into the ground and tie the wild cat to that spear; then you will keep the bucket over the bird so
that it wont escape. And then, since your hands will be free, maybe you will eat me! Do you see this?
That tiger had no clue of how to eat that goat, and that goat invited him with his own ideas! That is how
we welcome failure. We seek failure. Even when failure is not possible, we ourselves find out how we
can make it possible.
This brings us to the Fourth Law of Failure that says, Dream about your failure. People who
fail dream about their failure just as people who succeed dream about it too. Mind has tremendous
powers. If you dream something repeatedly, you achieve it. Once upon a time, there was a Shiva temple
in a village. Lakshmana was a youth who lived in that village. He used to visit that temple every day in
the morning. Every day he would observe Shivas Bull that was tied to a post in that temple. It was a
huge, strong bull and it had the most marvelous pair of horns. Every day he would see that bull and
marvel at its horns. The horns were shaped in such a beautiful way and Lakshmana would wonder how
exactly his neck would fit in-between those horns. Every day he would do this visit the temple and then
watch the bull and wonder how neatly and perfectly his neck would fit into the space between that bulls
horns. One fine day, he decided to go ahead with that idea. The bull was sitting in its place. He went near
that bull and slowly mounted it and placed his neck in between the horns. As soon as he did that, the bull
went crazy. It broke free from its post and started running around dragging the hapless Lakshmana along
with it. He started screaming for his life and people gathered around, stopped the bull, and saved him.
Then the people asked Lakshmana, Are you a fool? Why did you do that? You should think twice before
you do such a thing! Lakshmana answered, Twice?! I have thought about this for years! You will never
understand. This is another secret of failure. We think and think and think about how we will fail. Hence,
we fail.
You see, let me share a very important secret about our mind. Mind has a peculiar characteristic.
It does not understand negatives. It understands only positive language. We are never trained about how
to speak to our own minds. Once there was a king, who was losing his hair was getting bald. He
announced that a doctor who would cure him of his baldness would be rewarded handsomely and if a
doctor tried and failed, he would be killed. Many doctors lost their lives. The situation became ridiculous.
The Prime Minister then stepped in. he gave the King a bottle of oil and said, Your Majesty, this is
magical oil. It cures baldness. Use it for one month in the morning and luxurious hair will grow again on
your head. There is, however, one small condition you need to manage. Never think about mangoes when
you apply this oil on your head. The King was very happy. Next morning he was about to apply the oil
on his head and then remembered the advice of his Prime Minister. He must not think about mangoes.
Ah! But the pictures of ripe, big mangoes came to his mind. He felt angry with himself and threw away
the oil he had taken in his hand. He would try the next morning. Again the same condition. One month
passed like this and he was unable to apply the oil at all!
Do you understand what happened here? The mind has a very strange characteristic. It simply
cannot understand the words Dont. The king went on telling his mind dont think of mangoes and all
his mind did was to think of mangoes and then remove the pictures of mangoes from the mind! The king
could have translated that condition to let me think of apples before applying this oil, and he would have
succeeded. So, if you wish to achieve success, you must not even think of failure!
Swamiji to Nivedita Do not even imagine failure. Let us see how this happens actually in life.
You attempt to do something. You will certainly face some obstacles. If you stop there, you fail. Do not

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even consider of stopping. This is what he means when he said Arise, awake, and stop not until the goal
is reached.
So, let me summarize what I have told you, before I end. I explained to you the Four Laws of Failure.
1. Do not have a goal in your life
2. Have no faith in yourself.
3. Belittle yourself
4. Dream about your failure
If you follow these laws, you will certainly fail. If, on the other hand, you do the opposite of what
these laws say, you will succeed. The choice is yours. I have placed the mirror before you. Check for
yourself if you see yourself in that mirror or not. If you see yourself, you are in for big trouble. Change
your thinking habits as soon as possible.
Standing on this holy ground where Swamiji himself lived for over nine days, I pray to Guru
Maharaj that all the students assembled here may achieve life-fulfillment. I thank you for patiently
listening to me. Thanks once again.
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