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.

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 about the problem. 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.

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 immedi-ately start radiating energy.

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 responsi-bility, you expand and the divine energy flows through you. Contemplate on this concept so that you can deeply understand it.

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!

When you take up responsibility, a cognitive shift happens in you. Your mental set up 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 respon-sibility, the whole job becomes like a burden on him. There is little or no self-moti-energy starts expressing accordingly. You will have energy according to the responsi-bilities 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 transforma-tion 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.

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.

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 expe-rience. Understand, it is a great responsibility. It is not just freedom. It is a great responsibility too.

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

16