6. Responsibility is Power🔗

Internalize this one idea continuously: Mind is an Action; if I want, I can stop it; if I am acting, it is because I want to act. Who is responsible for your actions? Only you! If you are walking, you want it. If you are talking, you want it. Same way, if you are 'mind'ing, you want it! If you are thinking, you want it. You are responsible for your action called mind. Let this shift happen in your consciousness.

Please understand, Patanjali is not putting the responsibility on anybody else. He is not even putting the responsibility on God! In all these 196 sutras, he speaks about God in only one sutra, and even there, he is not describing the nature of God. He is only saying, ishwara pranidhaanaani - surrendering everything unto God. It is described as a spiritual quality. He is not even bothered about God; he is bothered about the spiritual quality called surrender. He says you can use God as a tool to surrender, as an object of surrender - that's all. He takes complete responsibility. So take complete responsibility even in your surrendering.

Understand, surrender with responsibility is Living Enlightenment. Responsible surrender is Living Enlightenment.

I have seen some people surrendering, or claiming that they have surrendered. Oh God! Even if you are caught by your enemies, you will not be tortured as much as you are tortured by these pseudo-surrendering people. They claim that they have surrendered to you. So whatever good happens in their life after that is because of their great surrender, and whatever bad happens is because of you!

Many people come and tell me, 'Swamiji, I have surrendered to you; I will do whatever you say. Please give me a solution.’ But the moment I tell something, they start saying, ‘No, no, no, I have this difficulty, that difficulty, that problem, this problem.’ They have 1001 conditions, 1001 preferences, 1001 other priorities. Then I tell them, ‘Tell me all your conditions first; then I will tell you the solution.’

So, Patanjali says very beautifully: Take the responsibility completely on your shoulders. A responsible person, when he surrenders, will be so graceful, so beautiful. An irresponsible person, even if he tries to surrender, will be only cunning and blaming—his surrender will never be complete. So the first thing you need is to be responsible.

In this sutra, Patanjali teaches us this basic truth: ‘Be Responsible.’ The moment you feel you are responsible for your thinking, you know very clearly that you can stop it. Only when you don’t want to take the responsibility, you go on postponing, postponing, blaming others or blaming Life.

Understand this very important truth: we always feel that responsibility is a burden. No! It is a POWER!

When you feel that you are not responsible for an event happening in your life, you become powerless to change it. When you understand that you are responsible, you will suddenly realize that you have the power to change it also.

The essence of this whole sutra is this: take responsibility for your subtle action, which I call Mind. When you take the responsibility, you know how to stop it whenever you want, and fall back into your natural space of completion.

See, mind is not only thinking. There are so many other mental patterns: regulation, channeling, mastery, integration, coordination, quieting – all these are the modifications of the mind. Relaxing from all this is what Patanjali calls chitta vritti nirodhaha, cessation of mind or withdrawal from mental patterns. Yoga means, being able to play with your mind - like in a circus or gymnasium - being able to do whatever you want with your mind or completely rest without it. Nirodha not only means controlling or dropping, it means relaxing from all the modifications of the mind.

So, I want all of you to contemplate on this today.

My mind is my responsibility. Taking responsibility for my mind makes me powerful!