June 27, 2025
Frustration is directly related to ambition: it is the other “side” of ambition. It thus destroys me and the world at large. When the several conflicting and competing ambitions of people oppose one another, there is fear, hate, violence and destruction. This is abundantly evident in the world today. Wisdom, therefore, recognizes not only that ambition is destructive, but also that it is unnatural and unnecessary. The wise man turns his gaze within to see the source of this ambition.
What is this ambition made of? Naturally, of the very substances that exist in each one of us - energy (life-force) and intelligence. This intelligence is somehow veiled from an awareness of itself, and therefore entertains the wrong notion that it is an independent individual, whose survival as such is possible only by overcoming “others”, the “others” being similar individuals, which in self-ignorance one feels are different and often hostile to “oneself”. Blinded by this self-ignorance, man becomes ambitious, and the energy flows in destructive channels.