bandhur ātmātmanas tasya yenātmaivātmanā jitaḥ

anātmanas tu śhatrutve vartetātmaiva śhatru-vat

For those who have conquered the mind, it is their friend. For those who have failed to do so, the mind
works like an enemy.
We dissipate a large portion of our thought power and energy in combating people whom we
perceive as enemies and potentially harmful to us. The Vedic scriptures say the biggest enemies
—lust, anger, greed, envy, illusion, etc.—reside in our own mind. These internal enemies are
even more pernicious than the outer ones. The external demons may injure us for some time,
but the demons sitting within our own mind have the ability to make us live in constant
wretchedness. We all know people who had everything favorable in the world, but lived
miserable lives because their own mind tormented them incessantly through depression, hatred,
tension, anxiety, and stress.

The Vedic philosophy lays great emphasis on the ramification of thoughts. Illness is not only
caused by viruses and bacteria, but also by the negativities we harbor in the mind. If someone
accidentally throws a stone at you, it may hurt for a few minutes, but by the next day, you will
probably have forgotten about it. However, if someone says something unpleasant, it may
continue to agitate your mind for years. 

The story goes that Proust was given the questionnaire by his friend Antoinette, daughter of the future
French President Felix Faure. Apparently, at the time it was a popular device used by English families to
understand better the character and aspirations of the taker.
questions like: What is your greatest fear? Which words or phrases do you most overuse? Which talent
would you most like to have? What is your motto? What is your greatest regret? Which historical figure
do you most identify with? If you weren’t a CEO, what would you want to be?
However, the same mind has the potential of becoming our best friend, if we bring it under
control of the intellect, through spiritual practice. The more powerful an entity is, the greater is
the danger of its misuse, and also the greater is the scope for its utilization. Since the mind is
such a powerful machine fitted into our bodies, it can work as a two-edged sword. Thus, those
who slide to demoniac levels do so because of their own mind while those who attain sublime
heights also do so because of their purified minds. 

yajña-dāna-tapaḥ-karma na tyājyaṁ kāryam eva tat

yajño dānaṁ tapaśh chaiva pāvanāni manīṣhiṇām
Everything is cyclic in the world. If you become successful, start giving back to the work.
Actions based upon sacrifice, charity, and penance should never be abandoned; they must certainly be
performed. Indeed, acts of sacrifice, charity, and penance are purifying even for those who are wise

we should never renounce actions which elevate us and are beneficial for humankind. Such
actions, if performed in the proper consciousness, do not bind us, instead they help us grow
spiritually. Consider, for example, a caterpillar. In order to transform itself, it weaves a cocoon
for its evolution and encages itself in it. Once it becomes a butterfly, it breaks open the cocoon
and soars into the sky. Our position in the world is similar to this. Like the ugly caterpillar, we
are presently attached to the world and bereft of noble qualities. As a part of our self-
preparation and self-education, we need to perform actions that bring about the inner
transformation we desire. The soil allows plants to grow, whose fruits we consume. When we die, we
bury our bodies into the same soil, nourishing it. This is the cycle of life. Similarly, everything that keeps
our hyper-modernized world running is part of a cycle, especially the world’s economy.
A new, well-thought business with skilled employees will grow, flourish, and make the founders rich and
the investors richer. The mere existence of this new business creates more jobs, moving many people
forward in their lives. But with great success comes great responsibility. Merely celebrating one’s success
all alone does not help the entire world to become better. As an entrepreneur gains more fame, they
should start contributing to the community that surrounds them. The entrepreneur could spend time
training the younger generation and passing on the skills and knowledge that made them successful

pravṛittiṁ cha nivṛittiṁ cha kāryākārye bhayābhaye

bandhaṁ mokṣhaṁ cha yā vetti buddhiḥ sā pārtha sāttvikī
The intellect is said to be in the nature of goodness, O Parth, when it understands what is proper action
and what is improper action, what is duty and what is non-duty, what is to be feared and what is not to
be feared, what is binding and what is liberating.
We constantly exercise our free will to make choices, and our cumulative choices determine where we
reach in life. Robert Frost vividly describes this in his poem, The Road Not Taken:
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence;
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
To make proper choices, a developed faculty of discrimination is required. The Bhagavad Gita itself was
spoken to Arjun to equip him with the power of discrimination. At the outset, Arjun was confused about
his duty. His inordinate attachment to his relatives had bewildered his judgment regarding proper and
improper action. Feeling weak and fearful, and in utter confusion, he had surrendered to the Lord and
requested him to enlighten him regarding his duty.
In a 1954 speech to the Second Assembly of the World Council of Churches, former U.S. President
Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was quoting Dr J. Roscoe Miller, president of Northwestern University, said:
"I have two kinds of problems: the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the
important are never urgent." This "Eisenhower Principle" is said to be how he organized his workload and
priorities.
He recognized that great time management means being effective as well as efficient. In other words, we
must spend our time on things that are important and not just the ones that are urgent. To do this, and to
minimize the stress of having too many tight deadlines, we need to understand this distinction:
Important activities have an outcome that leads to us achieving our goals, whether these are professional
or personal.
Urgent activities demand immediate attention, and are usually associated with achieving someone else's
goals. They are often the ones we concentrate on and they demand attention because the consequences of
not dealing with them are immediate.

When we know which activities are important and which are urgent, we can overcome the natural
tendency to focus on unimportant urgent activities, so that we can clear enough time to do what's essential
for our success. This is the way we move from "firefighting" into a position where we can grow our
businesses and our careers.
Don’t let your passion dictate your actions.

yayā dharmam adharmaṁ cha kāryaṁ chākāryam eva cha

ayathāvat prajānāti buddhiḥ sā pārtha rājasī
Follow Your Passion. Find Your Purpose.

Now isn't that a strange question? Take either one of these and tell someone "follow your passion" or
"follow your purpose" and they both sound like good ideas, and also kind of the same thing. But they are
not.Why are we interrupting your holiday with this? Because somewhere, someone in our network is
reading this and struggling with change. Working in a job that is unfulfilling, putting up with an
environment that is out of alignment with your personal values, and just generally aware that there is
more out there. Is it too late? How do you make the leap? But what about the mortgage?This article is not
going to answer those questions, because you already know the answers anyway, but what we do want to
do is to take a look at these two concepts, often talked about in education, and what they might mean for
your life.Chances are, you’ve been advised to “follow your passion” or “do what you love” at one point in
your life.

When someone or something is very close to our hearts, we become blind to their biggest faults because
of our love. We go on and always highlight their positive qualities. If someone dares to speak a word
against our loved things, we get defensive. Such can happen with an entrepreneur as well if he/she gets
too close to a project. For all the time, energy, and mental commitment that they pour into it, it is bound
to happen. 

But such attachment should not be encouraged. The entrepreneur should never let emotions get involved
in the way of making informed decisions. If a product constantly fails in the market despite several
revamps, it should be removed from the market and scrapped. Maintaining it just because of a personal
affection toward it will only create more losses. It could also affect relationships with other collaborators
who do not see the value in keeping a failing product alive.