Chapter 15 — Responsibility Elevates You🔗

With the intelligence gained about who we are and what we are doing here, comes the feeling of responsibility for others. We know then that we are not independent of others but interlinked to each other.

Some years back, there was an epidemic of tuberculosis in Tamil Nadu in South India. Finally, medicines were found and the epidemic was contained. The officials responsible for eradicating it proudly claimed that they were the ones responsible for curing it. But did they take up the responsibility for the fact that it was allowed to spread all over the town in the first place? No! They were actually responsible for allowing the tuberculosis to spread also, right? They should have prevented it to begin with and not just taken credit for managing the crisis!

Likewise, in our lives we claim responsibility for anything good that happens, but we don’t take responsibility for anything bad that happens. We take up responsibility with discrimination.

Only if we take up responsibility for everything that happens in our lives will we start growing.

When you start living with the attitude, ‘I am responsible,’ your whole life will change. If you sit and analyze each and every incident in your life, you will clearly see that you are the only one responsible for incidents in your life. Normally, we pass the responsibility to others and blame them for what has happened in our lives.

Understand that those who really wish to blossom should feel directly or indirectly responsible for everything that happens around them.

Swami Vivekananda beautifully says, ‘Take as much responsibility as you can shoulder. The more responsibility you take, the more you expand. Expansion is the only growth. Without expansion, you will contract and die.’

A small story:

Once a man was giving a talk on Responsibility at the Charity Club. He gave an example of what happened a few days back. He said, ‘A friend and I were walking down the street towards the park when we saw a helpless man lying unconscious on the road.’ He paused and looked at the concerned faces of the audience.

Then he continued, ‘Nobody had bothered to help him. Not only that, when we came back after our walk, the poor man was still lying there!’

Instead of blaming others, let us look into ourselves and see what we are doing to solve the problem! We are always ready to find fault with others. But how many times do we ourselves do something to address the issue?

The more responsibility you take up, the more you grow. Only when you feel responsible for all that is happening around you do you become a leader. Until then you are just a follower.

Compassion is responsibility and energy

One of my disciples once asked me, ‘Swamiji, how is it that so much energy constantly flows through you?’

When you feel compassion towards others’ suffering, the whole thing takes the shape of responsibility and expresses itself as energy, that’s all. For that matter, when anyone takes up the responsibility of suffering, they will immediately start radiating energy.

How many disciples did Jesus Christ have? Just twelve. How many disciples did Ramakrishna Paramahamsa have? Only sixteen. Each of these beings had only a small number of disciples, but because they took up responsibility, the movements expanded.

Be very clear, you can stand up only if you feel responsible for people’s growth, only if you feel responsible for uplifting them. When you can say that you will do whatever you can for people, when you stand up with responsibility, you expand and the divine energy flows through you. Contemplate on this concept so that you can deeply understand it.

Can air flow through a blocked bamboo? No! A blocked bamboo will only help carry a corpse to the cremation grounds. That same bamboo will become a flute when it is hollowed out! As long as you are selfcentered, you will serve in the same capacity as the blocked bamboo that carries the dead body. When you are free from ego and stand up with responsibility, the expansion happens and you become like the bamboo flute. Then, just as the air that enters the bamboo leaves it as music, so too will the air that enters you flow through you as energy!

A cognitive shift

When you take up responsibility, a cognitive shift happens in you. Your mental setup changes. Many of us live life like slaves. For example, if you work eight hours in your office just following orders you will feel dull and tired. Instead, if you take up responsibility and initiative, that same eight hours will become much easier and more enjoyable.

For example, take the case of a person who is running his own business and another person who is working for a company. The owner of the business has the full responsibility of his business, but the person who is working for some other company does not really feel the full responsibility. If he does not feel the responsibility, the whole job becomes like a burden on him. There is little or no selfmotivation. He keeps looking at his watch to see if it is time to leave! For him, only the first of every month is sweet, since it is payday! In a month, he sacrifices twenty nine days of his life for one day of joy. A sense of personal responsibility can help turn around any situation. A sense of personal responsibility can achieve great things.

When you stand up with responsibility, you become a solid force. Until then, you remain a burden for yourself and for others. We often think that we are in an ordinary job. We wonder why we should take up more responsibility when our higher authorities at work are not doing so.

Let me tell you, in an office, when a janitor does all his duties perfectly, he will inspire people. You see, the head of the organization has to be responsible. No credit is given to him for that! But someone in a lesser position demonstrating such responsibility is a true inspiration.

Ramakrishna Paramahamsa beautifully sannyasi has to think of god. No says, ‘A credit is given to him for it. A samsari is given credit every time he thinks of god! When a sannyasi forgets god even for a moment, it is a sin; whereas, when a samsari thinks of god even for a moment, it is a great thing.’ In the same way, a leader has to be responsible. No credit is given to a leader for being responsible. If a janitor is responsible, he can inspire an entire institution.

There is a greater chance of people at a lower post inspiring others through their sense of responsibility than people at a higher level doing so. So don’t wait to get some authority to become responsible. Secondly , don’t think that you are in a lesser post, and therefore you need not be responsible. Thirdly, allow the cognitive shift to happen in you.

Allow a change in the mental setup to happen in you. Currently, your mind is in a mithyam state of, lost in the illusionary, the unreal. Your mind is constantly searching for worries and sorrow in the outer world. If you deeply analyze yourself, you will realize that if you are intensely enjoying yourself, you are suddenly engulfed with a feeling of fear that there is nothing to worry about. Then, immediately you start thinking of things to worry about. You feel that you have lost something, and you start recollecting all your worries.

Mithyam means to go in search of sorrow and the ephemeral, going in search of that which is not there. We have to change the state of the mind from mithyam to nithyam , to the eternal, to the present moment. This is called the cognitive shift. This will happen when you stand up, saying that you are responsible.

If you stand up with this feeling for just 24 hours, things that were lying unfinished, things for which you blamed others, will get finished. Your entire life will change and blossom with a new sense of happiness. A new kind of ecstasy will engulf you. You will become a natural leader. Life will become a celebration! There is a beautiful story about Buddha. It is said that when Buddha went to beg, He would appear like a king, and the kings who gave Him alms would appear like beggars! Appearing like a beggar or a king is not because of your status or the property that you own. It is because of the state inside you.

When you take up responsibility for the entire cosmos, you will expand and look like a leader, you will become a leader. Even if a leader sits on his throne and does not take responsibility, but instead points his finger at others for responsibility, he will appear small. The state is that which gets the status, the status can never get the state. The state of

THE SPH is different from the status of THE SPH.

A commitment to serve people

Swami Vivekananda, the Eastern mystic, describes the motto for his mission as atmano mokshartham jagat hitaya cha – ‘For spiritual liberation as well as bringing good to humanity’. He implies that without taking up responsibility for the good of the world, you cannot talk of spiritual liberation.

A beautiful story:

In a place called Pandharipur in India, there was a boy who served his parents very lovingly and with great care. Lord Krishna took the form of Pandharinathar and came to see him. It was raining that day while the boy was attending to his parents.

Krishna stood at the door of the boy’s house and asked to be allowed inside. The boy asked Him to wait until he had finished attending to his parents. Krishna said that it was raining and slushy where He stood. So the boy actually threw a block of brick and asked lord Krishna to stand on it! Even today in that region, Pandarinathar is worshipped standing on a brick-block!

God Himself came down to see the consciousness and sense of responsibility of the boy. That is why I tell people, when you stand up with responsibility, energy will automatically flood you! Feeling that you are responsible is the greatest quality.

Ego Vs Responsibility

When you stand up feeling responsible, your problems will dissolve. A new intelligence will awaken in you. Don’t think you are being egoistic. Ego is different from responsibility. When you feel responsible, you will take the initiative, you will not feel egoistic. Only when you think that you would have done better than the other person will ego come into play. When ego comes into play, you will not take up responsibility.

Responsibility is not seriousness - the world is just a dream

Being responsible does not mean becoming serious. Sincerity is different from seriousness. When you become serious, you are only feeding your ego. When you are sincere, you understand about life and do not attach undue importance to any one thing at the cost of something else. You are able to approach life with a youthful enthusiasm, with spontaneity and innocence.

A child’s world is full of, ‘He took away my pencil!’, ‘He hit me!’… ‘She is not giving me my chocolate!’ We all lived in this stage of our life before we grew up. How does it feel when you think back about this? It appears comical now, doesn’t it? We laugh at how much we bothered for these little things! Now, let’s rewind to when we were five or six years old. At this age we may have fought for a geometry kit. When we were a few years younger, we fought for a pencil, and now we are fighting for the geometry kit. You grow up further. Now, if your best friend becomes very close to somebody else, you can’t bear that! If we think back about this, we feel like laughing. If I ask the elderly people about the problems of youth, about relationships, the problem will now not appear to be of a serious nature. This is because they have passed that age. Just like this, there is a state that is beyond all these states. It is the state to experience bliss. It is an experience that goes beyond all the states of life.

Take another example: Say you get a shocking piece of news. Someone whom you loved has been murdered. Even when you learn this, how much grief and trouble you feel! You can’t believe he is gone. You are crying uncontrollably. Suddenly your mother gives you a nudge and says, ‘Wake up’ and you wake up and realize, ‘Oh god! That was only a dream!’ Suddenly you are so relieved and relaxed! From this, we can understand a small technique for living life: ‘When the dream disappears, peace is born.’

Shiva says, ‘This whole world is merely a dream.’ How many people can accept this? You look at this world as reality because you have experienced it so.

We can accept things only when we experience them. The things that we have not experienced, we are not able to accept. The only solution is to go within ourselves and experience that bliss.

In our youth, the problems of early childhood appear comical. In our old age, the problems of youth appear comical. When we realize the Ultimate, everything appears to be playful. You can play the game of life beautifully, completely neckdeep in it, yet be completely unaffected by it.

Trust and patience

I always tell people, ‘Do not think you have a certain amount of energy and you will work according to that energy. No. Whatever work and responsibility you take up, the energy starts expressing accordingly. You will have energy according to the responsibilities which you take up. Whatever responsibility you take upon yourself, you will see that your inner space expands to that extent and energy flows through you!’

If you feel responsible for whatever is happening around you, you suddenly become a leader. You start transforming your life and others’ lives. Responsibility is one of the ways to consciously grow. You only need to do two things: trust that life is good and know that you can expand to the responsibilities that you take up. Another thing, when that expansion happens, just hold on and have patience during the transformation process. Patience during the transformation process is what I call tapas or penance. There is a beautiful phrase of the teachings of Shirdi Sai Baba: ‘ Shraddha Saburi’ – trust and patience. This is the essence of life.

Trust that you can expand in your life and then you will expand for all the responsibilities and commitments you take up. Have patience when the expansion or the transformation is happening in your inner space.

That’s all.

Nothing else needs to be done.

We seldom have either trust or patience. That’s why we just reproduce the same past into our future. Why don’t we allow big breakthroughs in our life? Because we don’t trust that life leads us into a new space. Have trust and patience. The simple truth is that when you take more responsibility, you just expand and more energy starts expressing through you.

Responsibility for others

Responsibility is one of the ways to consciously grow. Taking responsibility for others is the technique for enlightenment. That is what the Bhagavad Gita calls karma yoga. When you really feel that you should do the karma, the action of taking the responsibility for others, you will not even bother about results. Just out of your compassion, just out of feeling responsible, you will start working.

Working out of overflowing energy, overflowing compassion, and the overflowing feeling of responsibility for everything, is what makes a life spiritual. Working out of overflowing responsibility instead of greed or fear is what we call spiritual life.

Responsibility of enlightenment

Understand, enlightenment comes with a tremendous responsibility. It comes with a tremendous ‘pressured’ compassion. ‘Pressured’ is the right word to use! Your whole being will be vibrating with an intense compassion, with a very deep compassion.

Let me tell you one incident:

Early one morning, Vivekananda suddenly got up and said, ‘I have a deep pain in the right hand.’ At that time he was lying down on a bed. He said, ‘On this side of the ocean, some country is suffering from some natural calamity. Please find out where we are needed, and send our swamis to go and do the relief work.’ The next morning they received the news that there was an earthquake on a nearby island. All the swamis rushed to do the relief work.

Vivekananda was sensitive to and actually felt the pain felt by people so many miles away!

With enlightenment, practically the whole cosmos is felt inside your body. A deep pressured compassion lands on you along with the enlightenment experience. Understand, it is a great responsibility. It is not just freedom. It is a great responsibility too.

State, not status

Most of us wait for the status to come in order to take up the responsibility. Be very clear, it doesn’t work that way. Only if you take up responsibility will the status come. Those who wait for the status will not take up responsibility even after they get the status! They will simply find another reason or excuse, that’s all.

Be very clear, responsibility is a consciousness.

Many people think that if they get enlightened, they will get a golden throne. They think that somebody will give them food and a place to stay. They think that people will worship their photograph. If you see the status of the enlightened master and try to achieve enlightenment for that, you will feel cheated! If you see the state of the enlightened master and try to achieve it, you will be successful. You will be happy. You will enjoy it. That is the difference between state and status.