49. Beyond rules to responsibility

A small story:

Once a sergeant in his training session asked the recruits why walnut wood was used for making the rifle.

The recruits thought hard and one of them answered, 'Because walnut is

harder	Living every
than other	moment in total
types of	awareness is
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The serg

eant brushed him off saying, 'Wrong!' Another recruit ventured, 'Because it is more durable.'

The sergeant's voice boomed, 'Wrong!' A third person tried his luck, 'Because it is waterproof.'

The sergeant, tired of the answers by now, replied, 'You boys surely have a lot to learn. Simple reason: that is what is laid down in the rule book!'

In life, because it is easy to place responsibility on others, you blindly follow other people's directions instead of relying on your own intelligence.

You say you are obedient, but you are actually shirking the responsibility of owning up to your actions. This is a dangerous and age old habit of following the rule book. It is dangerous because sometimes you are not even aware that you are missing responsibility and intelligence. You become a parrot, repeating the same thing for years together because someone told it to you.

Talking about responsibility, a small joke on how people understand responsibility:

Acting out of your own intelligence is taking complete responsibility for what you do at all times.

Once, a convict was scolding his lawyer, 'You are a useless lawyer. You don't even understand

your responsibility of when to raise an objection.'

The puzzled lawyer asked him, 'I don't understand. When do you think I should have raised an objection that I did not?'

The convict replied, 'When the opposing lawyer spoke, you objected. But when the judge declared me guilty, you kept your big mouth shut. That was the time to do all the objecting!'

It is always easy to put the blame on the whole world for what happens in your life. But if you just look a little deeper, you can see how you are completely responsible for what is happening in your life!

Because you do not live every moment with awareness and take responsibility for your words and actions, you do so many things unconsciously. Then, when the effects of these actions happen, you claim you don't deserve the results!

Acting out of your own intelligence is taking complete responsibility for what you do at all times. For example, when you obey someone else you feel that you are being subservient to that person. But when you disobey that person, you feel guilty because a part of you feels that you should obey him or her but you are not obeying. The way out of this conflict is to follow your intelligence at that time with the clear understanding that you alone are responsible for your action. Then you will not hurt anyone including yourself. And you will be responding intelligently to the person you are disobeying as well.

Now and here

A small joke:

A salesman called up a prospective client and asked him, 'Is the boss in?'

The new office assistant asked, 'Are you a salesman, bill collector or a friend of his?'

The salesman, thinking quickly, replied, 'All three!'

The assistant said, 'In that case, he is in a business conference, he is out of town, step in and see him.'

The answer depends on the person asking the question! Being intelligent requires the effort to be yourself, which you are not used to. So you choose to react based on your past experiences.

Usually, we only react like programmed machines. We do not respond to situations. Someone insults you and you become angry even before becoming aware of what you are doing.

A beautiful story from the life of Buddha, an enlightened master from India:

Once a person insulted Buddha openly. His disciple Ananda said, 'I was getting so angry with the person. Why did you keep quiet? At least I would have given him a piece of my mind.'

Buddha calmly replied, 'You surprise me. What he was saying was completely irrelevant and you know that. Then why are you getting angry? You are punishing yourself. It is foolishness. When somebody else has made the mistake, why are you suffering for it?'

Moving with time, flowing with life, becoming a fluid process instead of being a solid ego is called intelligence.

But we are too lazy to act intelligently because responding to the present requires us to be continuously aware and alert.

Living in the present moment is living in utter insecurity. It needs courage and intelligence.

Actually, even the idea of security in life is an illusion. How can you predict what will happen even in the next moment? Anything that you predict can only be based on the past, something that you have seen. But the future is yet to happen. It is an unknown gift, so it can never be predicted.