The Conviction to Act

” Don’t talk to me. I am very angry at you.” I snapped at him.

“What happened? Did I do something wrong?” He replied, confused.

“Well, wrong, you are terrible. They are just insulting you and making fun of you. The deeds that you did for the upliftment of this humanity, the sacrifices that you made for your subjects, all and so more. And at last, what all these are getting interpreted as, is Your insecurity, Your cowardness and what not and You just smile, do nothing else. You know, the assassination of your character by those ignorants pains me so much.”

He held my hand, looked me into the eye and with a smile ,said,”But all of the Actions I did, was it because I needed their Praise! No, I did it because, that is what was needed to be done in that situation. I followed the path of Dharma not because I wanted to get praises or thrown flowers at but it is the way of Life. So, I don’t expect anyone to understand my Actions. Those who know, Praise it, even worship me. Those who don’t, well, you are seeing it all.”

“But How do you get such conviction to stand by your dharma inspite of the desire of getting praised or the fear of getting insulted or misunderstood?”

“Well, when Ashutosh is Your ideal, you gradually get out of this.”

“Care to explain?”

“See, you need to understand this very carefully. If you know this, you won’t be affected, neither by praise, nor by insults. The people, who praise you, don’t do it because they love you but because they love your qualities. Same are the people who criticize you. The same people, if you exhibit different qualities or Personality traits based on the need of the situation, will start disliking and criticising you, even what you did, was for their betterment. Exceptions in such people are devotees and a true lover. But the irony is that, only a devotee can be a true lover, no one else. This world of Maya/ subjective reality is nourished by three gunas or modes namely Satva/ goodness, Rajas/ passion, Tamas/ignorance. All the
creatures and people you see around, are governed by these three gunas or personality traits. So, when you realise that people love or criticize you because of your gunas, it grounds you and gives you stability to become equanimous with everything. And when your intellect becomes equanimous, that’s when you
rise above the gunas to become nirguna, meaning these personality traits don’t affect your actions. And you become situated in your dharma, not expecting either praise nor afraid of any insults. You smile because you know that neither who praise you or criticize you, know who you truly are. It is just because of their conditioning and the exhibition of your certain qualities.”

I held him tight and said, “To all those who think that they actually know us or themselves, HAHAHAHAHA!”

He held my nose and said,” But I know you very well, you naughty boy and that is the reason which binds me to you.”