(Below is a continuation of the post When Love Becomes Eternal)
This you have to ask her! If you feel you are not up to the mark, you can straight away start being up to the mark. Improve your qualities, otherwise she will anyways teach you! A spouse can bring the best out of you or the worst out of you. So, when the best comes out of you keep it and when the worst comes out of you, let it go.
See, we do many actions but their impressions do not stay on our minds. For example, if I ask you a week later, 'What did you have for breakfast on Saturday', you will not remember, unless it was an occasion or you had a fight!
If someone asks you, 'What did you have for lunch or dinner on December 29th', I don’t think you will remember. If you are able to tell them, then it means you have that karma!
Certain activities and actions do not imprint an impression on the mind, in this case there is no karma.
If I ask you, 'Which movie did you watch on September 23?' And you do not remember, it means that the movie has not caused a karma on you.
Any impression which is compelling is what karma is. For example, you have a habit of drinking coffee every day, and one morning you wake up and there is no coffee available, or you decide not to drink coffee, what happens? I have heard people say that they get a headache. This is coffee karma! It is when you don’t do something and there is a reaction to it. But, you can get over that karma.
If you have a headache, instead of having coffee again, take an aspirin or drink lots of water and bear that little pain, and then in 2-3 days you will no longer have headaches. This is how you get over coffee karma.
Similarly, people who smoke, their compulsion to smoke is smoking karma, but they can say no to it. Every habit is nothing but a karma pattern. If you say no to it, then you are already getting over it.
It is like asking, 'Why did the concept of blossoming come up?'
Everything is a bud, doesn’t a bud blossom? Of course it blossoms! Similarly, a fully blossomed human potential is enlightenment. It is not that a big lightening strikes you from the heavens and you say, ‘Oh, I’ve gotten enlightened!’ No. It is becoming a child again, and coming back to your original nature.
It is okay if people have expectations, you don’t need to get frustrated about it. You do what is in your capacity, and sometimes stretch a little more than what you think you can do and you will be amazed to see that you have much more capabilities. Take every expectation as a challenge for you to expand and express. When you take it as a challenge, you will not get frustrated. Do your best and give your 100%.
Like in a running race, you look only at your track and do your best. If you have the fear of losing the game even before starting it, then you will never be able to win the game. When you’re playing a game, you should put your 100%. If you have done your best then nobody will hold anything against you.
Sanyaas comes from a fulfilled mind, not from running away from life or from reality. It is staying amidst and being centered. That is what sanyaas is.
If you are too feverish and too passionate then you will be unhappy. It is good to have a little dispassion. Dispassion is like breathing out, while passion is like breathing in. If you’re only breathing in and are not able to breathe out, then you’re in trouble.
Everybody has some degree of dispassion. It grows with life and with maturity. Just see, when you were a baby, what did you do? You were holding onto your mothers clothes even while sleeping, or you were very fond of different candies and ice creams, but as you grew up, these things started losing their significance, isn't it so? You used to hold on to some toys, but as you grew up, there was dispassion for toys. Some amount of dispassion in food has come in you as well. As you grow older, even the attachment towards your friends diminishes. All of this is a type of dispassion.
When you see life from this perspective, then whether success or failure, you don’t mind. Every businessman knows this. When you have to bear loss, you have to move on, and that moving on is dispassion.
Suppose you made an investment and the stock market came crashing down, what can you do? You cannot go on cribbing about it the whole time. You have to swallow that bitter pill. Swallowing that bitter pill and digesting it, in my opinion is dispassion. Dispassion is not contrary to passion, it goes along with passion. Dispassion keeps you sane and gives you the much needed strength.
Adi Shankaracharya in one of his poems wrote, ‘What joy does dispassion not give you?’ This means that dispassion brings you all types of joys.
You are a good person otherwise you wouldn’t have even asked this question. Know that you have all the good qualities in you. You don’t have to make an effort to bring out the good qualities. Simply assume that you have them.
Don’t examine yourself too much and too often. When you feel you’re getting a little selfish, do some random acts of kindness that would make others happy. That is all! It is so simple.
Whenever you feel that you have only been thinking about yourself, join a seva team. There are so many seva projects happening. Spend one day in some underdeveloped area, or go to a slum area as a group. This will bring joy, contentment and satisfaction. Engage in any kind of service activity. The world needs you and your help.
It indicates that you’re very tired, mentally and physically. So rest well, but eat less. If you eat a lot and rest then restlessness increases. Eat little less so that the food gets digested well and then rest. That will take out all the tiredness.
You may feel lazy exercising all alone, but if you exercise in a group it will help you get over lethargy in the body and sluggishness in the mind.
Who is saying this? It is your intellect. Your intellect is giving its judgment on itself. Tell your intellect that it is wrong to pass a judgment on oneself. You need another judge to pass a judgment! If a judge passes a judgment on himself or herself, it has no validity. Got it?
So, stop judging yourself and stop judging others also. The moment you realize you have been judging, smile at yourself and move on.
