Commitments are part of your daily life - sri ravi shankar

Every living creature wants to be happy. Whether it is money, power or sex, you get into it for the sake of happiness. Some people even enjoy misery because it gives them happiness! To be happy, we seek something. But despite getting it, we are not happy. All of one’s life is spent in preparing to be happy someday in the future. It’s like making a bed all night, but having no time to sleep. How many minutes, hours and days have we spent our life being happy from within? Those are the only moments you have really lived life. There are two ways of looking at life. One is thinking that "I’ll be happy after achieving a certain objective". The second is saying that "I am happy come what may!" Which one do you want to live? Our life is like a river. The banks of a river guide its flow in one direction, but during floods the water is muddled and loses direction. Similarly, the energy in our life needs some direction to flow. Without a direction, it is all confusion. Today, most of the people are in a state of confusion because their lives lack direction. 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. When it stagnates, it rots! Just like a river, life has to keep moving. For life energy to move in a direction, commitment is essential. Life runs on commitment. Everything in life, small or big, comes along with a certain 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 he prescribes. Banks work on commitment; so do governments. A family runs on commitment: Whether it is love or business or friendship or at work or any area of life you take, there is commitment. You cannot stand someone who does not commit, but how much commitment have you taken in your life? Of course, our commitment is proportional to what we have, our power, our capacity or capability. If you are committed to taking care of your family, you gain that much capacity or power. If your commitment is for the community, you will get that much more energy, joy, that much power. More will be given to you only if you utilise properly what you already have! This is a law of nature. Why should nature give you more when you are stuck with your little mind? The tendency to seek more is there in you; you only have to give a twist to it. Ask yourself: "What more I can do?" Then you will see that there is joy. The more responsibility you take, the more power will come to you. The greater the commitment, greater is the power you gain to fulfil that commitment. Smaller commitments suffocate you, because though you have more capacity, you are stuck in a small hole! If you just sit and think, "What about me, what will happen to me?" you will get thoroughly depressed. The way to expand from individual to universal consciousness is to share others’ sorrow and joy. As you grow, your consciousness should also grow. When you expand in knowledge with time, then depression is not possible. The way to overcome personal misery is to share universal misery! The way to expand personal joy is to share universal joy. Instead of thinking "What can I gain from this world?" think, "What can I do for the world?"