Responsibility Increases Power by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

#ads

A river needs two banks to flow. The difference between flood and a flowing river is that in the latter the water flows in a particular direction whereas in floods the water is muddled and has no direction. Similarly, in our life if the energy is not given a direction, it is all confusion. The life energy needs some direction to flow.

When you are happy, there is so much of life energy in you but when this life energy doesn’t know where to go, how to go, it gets stuck and rots! Just as water has to keep flowing, life has to keep moving. For life energy to move in a direction, commitment is essential. Life runs on commitment. A student takes admission in a school or college with a commitment. You go to a doctor with a commitment saying that you are going to take the medication or listen to whatever the doctor prescribes.

Banks work on commitment. Government works on commitment. Needless to say, a family runs on commitment: the mother is committed to the child, the child is committed to the parents, the husband is committed to the wife, and the wife is committed to the husband. Whether it is love or business or friendship or any area of life, there is commitment. What really irritates you is non-commitment. You expect some commitment from someone and when they don’t do it, you get upset. Or when someone doesn’t keep up his or her commitment, you get upset. But see how much commitment have you taken in your life?

Our capacity or capability is also proportionate to our commitment. If you are committed to taking care of your family, that much capacity you gain. If your commitment is to the community, you will get that much energy, joy, that much power. Greater the commitment you take, the greater the power you gain to fulfill that commitment. Smaller commitments suffocate you because you have more capacity, but you are stuck in a small hole!

When you have ten things to do and even if one thing goes wrong, you can keep doing the remaining things. But if you have only one thing to do and that goes wrong, then you are stuck with it. Usually, we think we should have resources and then we will commit ourselves. It is actually otherwise. Greater the commitment you take, greater the resources that will come to you automatically. When you have the intention to do something, resources simply flow as needed.

There is no growth in doing what you can do. Stretching a little beyond your capacity makes you grow. If you can take care of your company because it is within your capacity, there is nothing great about it. But if you stretch it little more and take commitment to take care of the whole town, then you gain that much more power. As you take on greater responsibility, your capability increases, your talents increase, your joy increases and you become one with the Divine force.

In whatever capacity you do something for society, for the environment, for the creation, that much you progress both materially and spiritually (value wise). The heart opens up with a feeling that you are part of everyone.