Give yourself permission to try and get REJECTED

Why some succeed, where others fail?

Why Rejection is so powerful?

Why do two humans facing the same outcome, behave differently?

Rejection is a brilliant tool to reassess one’s current situation & determine the next steps constructively.

Let me start this note by picking up stories of two great warriors of the Mahabharata, the Indian Epic that teaches one not only principles of life but also about one’s Dharma.

We all know that in the Mahabharata Arjuna was the greatest archer but there were two men who were equal or better.

Eklavya and Karna !!

Eklavya was a young prince of the Nishada, a confederation of jungle tribes (Bhils) in Ancient India. He possessed great powers which were given by Mother Earth. Eklavya aspired to study archery under Guru Dronacharya. The guru rejected him as he was not a prince or from the royalty and didn’t belong to any dynasty either.

He didn’t get disheartened by his rejection. Instead, he created a statue of Guru Dronacharya, anointed him his guru in spirit, and practiced in front of the statue. Later, Guru Drona realized the boy’s skills and was fearful for his favorite disciple Arjun. So he asked Eklavya for his Right Thumb which is imperative for archery, as Guru Dakshina (a token of gratitude or donation or payment for the services provided by Guru). Eklavya readily agreed and gave it away.

Thus, Eklavya chose to rise above his rejection, worked on his skills and talent, and emerged so powerful that the one who rejected him got fearful of him.

Then, there was Karna. The eldest son of Kunti, mother of the Pandavas. He was disowned by his mother at the time of birth and was raised by a charioteer. He also possessed great powers gifted to him by his father Surya, or the Sun God. He, too, like Eklavya approached Guru Dronacharya for getting lessons in archery and other weapons.

Guru Dronacharya rejected him stating that he was the son of a charioteer and not of a king. He later learned archery and weapon techniques from Bhagwan Parshuram (Warrior Sage) by lying to him that he was a Brahmin. Furthermore, to gain acceptance and defeat Arjuna, he went to the wrong side and supported Duryodhana in his wrong deeds.

From Karna’s story, we learn that rejection makes you revengeful and your purpose in life becomes vengeance instead of gaining knowledge and enlightenment.

There are 3 outcomes of rejection

1. The person who gets rejected gets into a mode of self-doubt, self-pity, frustration, and fright of the next attempt or new opportunity. Most such people give up and get into a downward spiral of depression.

2. Some rise above the rejection but are driven by anger and vengeance and keep working on their talents, skills, or expertise until they make sure they put the person or the society or the group or the world at large is put down. The emotions which drive this are retribution and anger.

3. Finally, there are those who take rejection as a means to learn better and receive better. Those who are the seekers of ultimate power and knowledge learn so that they can improve and can help several others who are not so privileged mentally, emotionally, physically, or monetarily. They introspect and find reasons for what happened and move on the path of course correction. They figure out where they went wrong and how in the next possible stroke the same mistakes are not repeated.

It’s interesting to understand why Rejection is so powerful before I conclude this note.

I have repeatedly written in my notes that there are only 2 primary emotions in this Universe — Love & Fear. Everything else is an outcome of these two.

When we generally pursue something for a long time or with complete focus and attention, it’s out of love of it or love with that being. As soon as we get rejected, we shift from love to fear.

Fear of what people will say.

Fear of what society will think.

Fear of rejection,

Fear of being a loser,

Fear of not finding success,

Fear of making the wrong decision etc.

We tend to forget the very fact that it’s we who have created this society, a cluster of people, groups, or clans. It’s not that these societies created human beings. We get fearful of what we created, which doesn’t gel well with the principle of creation & destruction.

Thus Siddhartha Rastogi says,

“It’s futile to procrastinate one’s response to rejection, instead one should use it as a tool for improvement & one then will become invincible ruling Self & the world.”