4. Trust and patience
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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 Baba4: '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.
4.1 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 yoga5. 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.