DON'T DO YOUR DUTY! DUTY VS. RESPONSIBILITY
There's an old Hindu tale:
A king was on a hunting trip in a forest, when all of a sudden he was enchanted by the lovely notes of a flute. Trying to trace the source of the music, he came upon a man sitting alone outside his hut, playing his music for the river and the wind.
The king asked the man, You play the flute wonderfully! Who taught you to play?
Oh, no one! smiled the man. When I sit here and watch this beauty, the song arises on its own. This is just my way of expressing my joy!
The king was impressed. No musician in his palace could play so beautifully. He decided that it might be a good idea to take the man back to the palace with him.
In spite of the man's protests, the king took him back to the palace. His sole duty was to entertain the king with his delightful music. The king arranged for the man to have one of the finest rooms in the palace, overlooking the royal gardens.
The next morning, the king woke early and summoned the man to the garden.
Come on, play me a song! he ordered.
Obediently, the man struggled with the flute - but no music would emerge from it!
The king was astonished.
What is the matter? Is the royal garden lacking in beauty? Do you have no inspiration to play? he demanded.
No, Your Majesty. The garden is beautiful, but my music can no longer match its beauty, said the man unhappily. Why? asked the king.
Because yesterday my music was a joy, today it has become my duty!
DUTY is truly an ugly word!
No other word has such a tremendous capacity to transform joy into misery.
Duty must be the most abused word of our time.
In the history of civilization, so much has been spoken and written about the importance of doing one's duty that it is time to ask: what actually is Duty?
Duty is nothing but doing the right thing for the wrong reason!
Duty arises when a sense of values is imposed upon us from the outside. When you find yourself doing the 'correct' thing, but with no sense of joy or fulfillment, it usually means that you are just fulfilling a duty. And without exception, every person secretly rebels against the concept of having to perform one's duty.
But duty is a double-edged sword!
When you do something merely out of a sense of duty, you usually end up feeling resentful and frustrated. But if you don't do it, you feel guilty! Both ways, duty doesn't give you a chance at happiness.
How do we find ourselves trapped in the snare of duty?
The sad truth is, most of us don't have the courage to live life on our own terms. We seek refuge in so many institutions - social, moral, legal.
But we forget that nothing in life comes for free! In return, these institutions impose 'duties' upon us. Ultimately, our controls are always in someone else's hands! But we live in such deep unconsciousness that we don't even realize we are trapped.
A man once approached the Buddha, seeking sannyas. He wanted to become the Buddha's disciple.
The Buddha smiled and told him, Alright, I will accept you. But on one condition. First, I want you to go and kill your family and friends, and come back to me.
The man was astonished. What did the Buddha mean by that?
Was the Buddha asking the man to go and physically kill his family and friends?
NO! What he meant was, Go and kill the voices of society which are inside you, continuously instructing and disturbing you. Kill them psychologically, not actually. Remove their influence from your Being.
Take a close look at your life.
How many people are sitting inside your head, giving you instructions on how to live and what to do? How many people are telling you what is right and wrong for you? Who are the people controlling your life?
Your parents, your children, your spouse, your friends, strangers, society, law. All the writers of all the moral books you have read, all the speakers of all the discourses you have listened to are sitting there!
There will be enough people to tell you what to sacrifice, and for whom: for your family, your children, for society, for your motherland, for an ideology, for God…!
Every patriot thinks it his duty to kill! Even Hitler considered it his sacred duty to kill all the Jews on the planet.
At least in war, people kill their enemies for the sake of duty. You are killing yourself!
Ask yourself this question consciously: what are my real reasons for doing my duty?
The desire to please someone?
The fear of disapproval?
A sense of guilt?
Pride in being morally superior?
Make a list of all the duties you have been doing for the past five years. Mark the ones you are doing NOW.
Ask yourself: has it been worth it? Have they helped you feel more joyous, more fulfilled? Or have they left you with a vague sense of resentment?
Now, do this. This is important.
Make a note of all the times when doing something for someone else has brought you tremendous joy.
Which are those times? Who are those people?
You will find that those were always the times when you performed an action most selflessly, when you voluntarily shifted the focus of your attention from yourself to the other. It might be anyone - your beloved, your child, your best friend.
Without exception, when an action is performed out of love, there is never a feeling of resentment. There is never the burden of duty. Love is the key that can free you from the prison of duty! This is not a moral statement.
Whether you believe it or not, whether you accept it or not, we are all deeply interconnected.
Just as every organism in the Earth's ecosystem is interconnected on the physical plane, we are intimately connected to each other without our awareness.
This is the reality of our existence.
To recognise this is a sign of maturity.
When you experience love for another, you make this leap into awareness naturally!
When people talk to me about duty, I tell them,
What you are doing is the right thing.
But the reason you are doing it for is wrong!
Live out of Consciousness, not out of Conscience.
Don't trust your fear. Trust your intelligence.
Even without fear or guilt, you will automatically stay on the correct path.
You may ask me, but most of my duties involve people I love! Then why do I find it such a strain?
Because, somewhere along the way, in the push and pull of daily living, you have lost focus of your love!
You have replaced your natural sense of responsibility with an enforced sense of duty.
There is a tremendous difference between responsibility and duty.
Responsibility is literally the ability to respond. It is your capacity to respond spontaneously to the needs of another.
Responsibility is what inspires a man to rush into a burning house to rescue a stranger. No sense of duty could have accomplished that!
Responsibility is a natural offshoot of love. It arises when you recognize that you are not separate from the other.
It springs from the deep understanding:
You are, therefore I am.
Once the sense of responsibility arises, the word duty will vanish on its own.
EVERY BODY KNOWS...!
TRUST YOUR BODY'S INTELLIGENCE