Yes, great discoveries and inventions have been triggered off by a lot of things including dissatisfaction. So nobody says `Don’t be dissatisfied’. You find yourself dissatisfied, you can’t do anything about it. In my years of teaching, especially in my work with corporates and organisations where a high level of competency is valued, I have found that imbibing the value of viveka aids clear thinking in one’s practical life. The ability to see an issue from multiple angles helps to sort out confusing issues. This is viveka applied in day-to-day living and the height of viveka would be to be totally centred on what I am.
Vairagya is the ability to be totally objective in life. Both these qualities would actually aid more competency and not less. These values can make you more effective. Similarly, values like `sama, dama...etc’ are all about mind management–appropriate behaviour and learning to handle one’s emotions and thoughts. All the values that make a good student of Vedanta will also make a person a competent human being, because only a competent human being is capable of achieving anything in his or her worldly life or spiritual life. Therefore, viveka and vairagya, at one level, are high degrees of competence as a human being. That degree of competence can be applied in any field you want to.
Vairagya has often been misinterpreted as apathy, indifference but it means having a great sense of objectivity in life, to be able to objectively appreciate the value of things. For example, money, one has to understand that money can buy you comfort, not love or happiness, it can buy a house but not a home. So when I understand what money can do and what money cannot do, an objective pursuit of money will be very healthy, it will make me more competent. In fact I will value money but money will not become my master. People cannot buy me. Such a person is competent and incorruptible. That is a great thing to have in today’s society. I think the motivation is not lacking in such a person. Yes, I’m more objective about things…This makes you a person with a drive instead of a person who is driven…If you have drive, you are the master, but if you are driven you are the slave…That’s the difference that can come about if we inculcate the values of shatsampati, viveka and vairagya in our lives…