Expectation

If you do not like the result that comes from the right action, then your like is not right. The result is still right. Challenge your likes and dislikes, not the rightness of the result.

She won’t directly say, “Get me a sari.” Often when they need a sari, they do not say they need a sari; they say, “Janu (beloved), you do not love me!” And janu understands: she needs a sari.

Similarly, janu does not need to say…

You did not do what you should have done for yourself; therefore you now expect somebody else to do good things for you.

The responsibility to bring goodness to your life rests primarily upon you, not upon somebody else. To bring somebody to life and then expect that somebody to…

Only in aloneness can you have relationships that are not exploitative. Otherwise, it doesn’t matter what name, what color you give to your relationship; your relationship will be definitely one of exploitation.

Have you ever looked at your relationships closely? Do you ever want the other? No. You just want…

The problem is, the usual feminism always proceeds keeping the man at the center. The woman is saying, “The man is alright, and I want to be like the man.” This is such a low standard to set. Whereas, true feminism would proceed keeping the person that the female is,…

You never want the other person; you want returns from the other person.

When those returns are not forthcoming, have you seen how you shout, how you go breathless, how you panic, how you stamp your feet, how you pull the other’s hair, how you pull out your own hair?…

Life is decided by no factor stronger than the company and the environment you give yourself. So be careful. Be careful about the people you meet, be careful about the stuff you read, be careful about what you eat, be careful about what you are seeing, what you are hearing.…

If you start thinking that a man or a woman will bring contentment to you, will bring godliness to your home, then you are going to be severely disappointed.

And that’s why you see disappointed couples. The man was living a forlorn life. The woman was living a spineless life,…

Why do you want commitment? Because not only do you want to have sex, you want an uninterrupted and guaranteed supply of sex; that is what you call as commitment.

“Not only should you be with me for one night; assure me that I will find you on the bed…

Nobody is obliged to live as per your fancies. Are you able to fulfill your own expectations? And if even you cannot meet your self-image, how is the poor wife or husband going to live up to what you expect from him or her? If you think that it is…

A fellow might be doing the worst possible thing to you in the name of love or concern or friendship, and he will keep saying, “But you know, this is my care towards you.” This is not care. You must apply intelligence. Is this love? Is this care? When you…

You do not really care about the expectations that, let’s say, the entire humanity has from you. It is bitterly cold and a dog is outside your doorsteps; you do not wonder about the expectations that that dog might be having. It is only the expectations of a particular four…

You defeat someone not because he is weak; you defeat someone when he wants to protect his weaknesses. Understand the difference. It is not your weaknesses that defeat you; it is your fondness towards your weaknesses, your protective attitude towards your weaknesses that defeats you.

If you are prepared to…

Is your lover enfeebling you, enslaving you, or empowering you? Ask yourself.

Somebody who limits you, cages you, mostly in the name of care, cannot be your friend, let alone lover.

Somebody who allows you to comfortably exist with your weaknesses cannot be a worthy lover.

Somebody who doesn’t challenge…

Our love is always a product of conditions and proceeds only as long as conditions remain favorable. It hurts to hear this, because we want to claim and we have professed in front of our loved ones many a times that “I will keep loving you till eternity” and, you…

Lovers often like it when the partner acts silly. “It is so sweet, chomu is so silly!” But have you ever seen the partner going crazy saying, “My chomu is so enlightened”? An enlightened chomu is such a threat; you cannot like him. But silly chomu is so cute.

You…

Most of us are not the bunnies our parents want us to be. Whose problem is it? Yours? Let it be their problem! Why do you worry?

First of all, you unnecessarily give birth to a child, and then you burden him with your expectations. Instead of apologizing to him…

Do not be with someone who makes you dependent, even in the name of care or love. Do not watch a film series, or a web series, or a TV serial that kind of makes you addicted. The ‘I’ wants to get attached. And if the object that the ‘I’…

Even when everything seems to be going right in a relationship, keep checking: Have I become dependent? Have I become exploitative? Have I started holding expectations? Has the other started holding expectations? Is the other blocking my view of the larger universe? Has the other become too central to my…

These are two words that you must be very careful about, ‘want’ and ‘must’, ‘I want to do this thing’ versus ‘I must do this thing’—these are dimensionally different statements. All ‘want’ is conditioned. ‘Must-ness’ is an entirely different thing.

“This must be done. And in front of this it…

Questioner (Q): Acharya Ji, how can I detach myself from the disappointment that others feel when I fail their expectations?

Acharya Prashant (AP): The people are disappointed with you because you won't fulfill their expectations. What effect does their disappointment have upon you?

Q: It makes me feel guilty.

AP:…

Questioner (Q): Acharya Ji, the main two enemies on the path of love that always stop one from moving forward are attachment and expectation, and they both lead to suffering and it takes a lot of guts and effort to stand up and walk again on the path of love.…

Questioner (Q): When we go out, then we don’t see any other place in which we find love, maybe some song or some movie but very little, very rare case. And that creates a disappointment, we are always disappointed. But there are only very few places like coming to you,…

Acharya Prashant: Are we young? Are we really young? To be young means, to be energetic, means to be open. Oscar Wilde had said, youth is lost on the young. Do you understand its meaning? That we only turn young in the body. Either we remain a child throughout life…

Questionnaire: Sir, Why expectation comes with attachment. And how attachment can be controlled?

Acharya Prashant: Sit. What’s your name?

Questionnaire: Jyoti Narayan.

AP: Jyoti. Question is “What is the relationship between expectation and attachment? And how can attachment be controlled?

Listener 1: Yes sir. Both.…

Questioner (Q): Sir, can an introvert become more communicative?

Acharya Prashant (AP): Why does an introvert need to be more communicative?

Q: He has some fears and doubts when he talks to someone.

AP: Who is an introvert?

Q: The one who is afraid of asking doubts.

AP: That is…

Question : Why do I get affected when others say something about me?

Speaker : You do not ask this question when someone says something good about you or when someone gives you a compliment. This question that why do I get affected when somebody says something about me, arises…

Love is not a mental or physical need. Love is not for the faint-hearted. Love is not for those who fear the loss of relationships, reputation, possessions or life. Love is not for those who are afraid of family, society, or uncertainty. Love is not for those who seek sanction from tradition or culture.

Love would have helped you fly. And now you have captivated love within four walls. As wise men and women, if you are married, wonderful. As wise men and women, if you are not married, wonderful. The point is not really marriage. The point is wisdom. https://dev-main8.vedant.life/en/articles/marriage-and-love-1_0ff5cad

How did the Buddha look then? Who is the Buddha? Let’s try to understand with the story of Gautama Buddha, The ‘Shakya Muni Buddha’ as we call him. So, who was he? Let’s look at his central characteristics. One, someone who is well versed in the knowledge of his time. Buddha had deep scriptural knowledge. He was born in a Hindu Kshatriya family, he was a prince and ever since his childhood he was quite talented. So, one thing about him is that he was quite well-read. Second thing is, he was deeply interested in knowing the depths of life. He did not want to remain merely at the superficial levels, so he would observe a lot, he would think a lot. https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articles/todays-buddha-1_4d1b6bf

Questioner: A lot of students that I talk to — it’s the fear of the society, it’s the fear of the unknown, it’s fear of the expectations that they are carrying, that pushes them to become an engineer and then they figure out that probably this is not something that they wanted to be. And that is the reality of a lot of individuals and not just engineers. Probably, here is something that is stopping me from taking a plunge of starting something of myself, right? Fear is something that is stopping somebody who is in a relationship for ten years to take that step to get married. Where does this fear come from? Acharya Prashant: Lack of love, which comes from lack of self-knowledge. You see, when I tie my sense of existence, my very identity, to something that is unreliable, I will have to be afraid. It’s like putting my heart on this table. Now, how can I live in security? The heart is out there on the table, anybody can take it away, anything can happen to it. Or the heart might grow legs and walk away on its own. My very existence has been subjected to something that is not in my control. Something that is definitely going to deceive me at some point, that is fear. My sense of self-worth comes from my monies, my bank account, I will be afraid. That bank account can be closed anytime, anything can happen. My sense of self-worth comes from my physical appearance. I very well know, time will take it away, I will be afraid. Right? Who am I? I am the one who is praised or worshipped by the society. Oh! I will be so afraid, so afraid! You talked of people working for their images, they would be living a cursed life. Because, their heart is out there in the hands of strangers. Their entire identity is tied to their image and the image is in the eyes of other people. So, the image can be distorted or can disappear any moment. Just imagine, how afraid they would be all the time. That’s with the ego. Because, the ego, as I said, is a fundamental sense of incompleteness. Therefore, to complete itself, it just associates itself to anything possible. And the things that you are associating yourself with, they are not reliable. They belong to the world and the world can take them away. They belong to time. They came with time and with time all those things will disappear. And you have tied your identity to those things. Now how can you rest in peace? That’s fear. If you do not have self-knowledge, you will always be afraid. My identity is linked to my husband’s identity. Now the husband has two legs. And the husband has a brain, a mind of his own. If your identity comes from your husband’s name, as happens in India at least, you would always be afraid as a wife. The husband can change his mind any day. You would always be, you know, having one eye on his secretary, and the other eye in his email and mobile phone. What’s he getting into? Who’s texting him? Why is he on the phone so late in the night? Because you are afraid if husband goes away, what happens to you? Your very existence depends on the husband. That’s fear. When you operate from the ego centre and make something very, very important for yourself and that something belongs to the world, it can go away anytime, and you are afraid. And in that fear, there can never be love, never be love. If you are afraid of losing something, you will be very violent towards it. Nobody lets his money go and have a walk down the road. What do you do? You lock up your money. That’s violence. When something starts becoming very meaningful to you, you lock it up. You don’t want it to have freedom. And that’s violence. So, love and fear just cannot go together. If you are dependent on something or somebody, you will be afraid. And that dependence cannot be called love. And that is a confusion, we often get into it. Just because you depend on somebody and somebody depends on you, you start feeling as if it is love, it is not. Questioner: Just like the way political parties think that people love them but it actually is fear. Acharya Prashant: Exactly! Love is a rare quality and rarer in politics. Questioner: So, if I am interested in a particular profession, do I not pursue it wholeheartedly? Do I pursue it wholeheartedly knowing very well that the results can either be zero or one? Acharya Prashant: One has to go into the very nature of interest. Aren’t we interested in cricket? Aren’t we interested in seeing songs in movies? Practically, everybody in India is interested in cricket, nobody in Brazil is. And nobody in India is interested in ice hockey. So, that’s how flimsy the whole thing about interest is. In India, if you don’t get a movie with songs, you say, “I am disinterested.” The movie would bomb. In Hollywood, if you have a movie with songs, that would raise eyebrows, what’s going on? Occasionally, you have an OD song but typically there is no song. So, that is the nature of interest. It is never something of the heart. Love and interest are not the same thing. Interest is something that is given to you by your body, by your environment, by random chance, your circumstances and all these. So that’s how your interests come to you. So, if you are interested in a vocation, first of all, you have to ask yourself, “Just two years back, I was interested in something else and two years before I was interested in that and when I was four years old, I was interested in becoming a fighter pilot. What happened to all those interests?” Today, I smile at those things and just shrug them off, “I don’t want to be a fighter pilot.” What you want to be today? Oh! I want to be an investment banker. What happened to the fighter pilot? You were so interested in that. And how do you know, tomorrow you will not be looking at this I-banker, just the way today you are looking at the fighter pilot. The self of a five-year old appears so naïve and immature when you are twenty-five. How do you know that at thirty-five, you will not look back at this twenty-five year old self and say, “What the hell! How was I taking this fellow so seriously?” So, interest is something that you must look at with healthy contempt. Interest, mind you, can even be induced in you. Interest can be aroused in you. That’s what the entire advertising industry is about. They can make you feel Interested in things that is intrinsically worthless to you. So, of what value is this thing called interest? But, then in today’s world, we place so much premium on this word 'interest.' Do what interests you, this, that. Whereas, it is wisdom to realize that interest is the last thing that you should ever go after. Then people come up and say, “No, should we do things that we are not interested in? No.

Does the person you are with encourage you to read? You have to ask, “What does he bring for me, roses or books?”

Be very cautious of those who bring roses for you, especially red roses. Books are what we all need, and books are dangerous. Books are dangerous because…

In our country, most people marry because that is sometimes the only way of getting some good sex—good and assured sex. Otherwise, the fellow would either have to spend a lot of money or a lot of time, or both, and then still return empty-handed. Isn’t that so?

Now, if…

Overview Fighting Duryodhana is Dharma . Fight Duryodhana in the way you can, that is swadharma . Dharma is the same for everybody, but swadharma varies according to your physical, social, temporal conditions. But remember that swadharma can never be in contradiction of Dharma ; swadharma will always be something…

Now, mind is movement, right? Why does the mind move at all? The mind wants to reach somewhere. Where does the mind want to reach? Is that place within the mind? The mind wants to reach somewhere. Every thought, every action, every motivation, every emotion rides on a desire, is…

I had to unlearn a lot of things, and I am grateful to all the sources—the books, the people and the experiences that helped me unlearn. And I am grateful to that within me that had the courage to unlearn.

A lot of unlearning is needed. I often say you…

I had to unlearn a lot of things, and I am grateful to all the sources—the books, the people and the experiences that helped me unlearn. And I am grateful to that within me that had the courage to unlearn.

A lot of unlearning is needed. I often say you…

The world is your playground. So don’t be so particular about moving only within your pre-existing circle. If your cause is worth it, show some courage and move out.

If you have a tender and precious sapling in your palm, would you plant it in a desert? No. You will…

Most people never evolve beyond their psychological age of three, four, ten, or twelve years. So they have to be consoled like kids.

If a two-year-old is crying, you cannot talk reason to him, can you? What does a two-year-old need? You pick him up, caress him a little, kiss…

What does it mean to have an inauthentic relationship?

To be authentic is to be complete and secure in yourself. Anything authentic is not in need of further improvement or refinement; it is already authentic. That is the way the authentic mind functions: it does not relate with the other…

When you meet a person, meet in friendliness, meet in love, meet to share, meet to play, meet to rejoice. That’s right relationship. Don’t meet to sit at that person’s feet. That’s vulgar. You don’t need to sit at anybody’s feet. This head can bow down only in front of…

You were once a girl; you would have read mathematics, history, science, geography, languages. Didn’t you find inspiring figures there? Didn’t those books arouse fantastic ideas in you?

I am sure that when you were younger, you thought of excellence, didn’t you? You would have had dreams. In your dreams,…

You are what you want. If you want to change who you are, then you will have to want something radically different. Your destination, your desire decides your constitution. You become what you intend to achieve and be.

If you love the mud, you will become an earthworm. If you…

A fellow who irritates you and keeps your mind agitated, why is he present in your life as a friend? How exactly is he taking care of you if his presence leads to an unsettled mind? What are these tags?

The only definition of a friend is someone who brings…

Love is when you start seeing the deep desire beneath all your superficial desires. Love is when you start seeing what you are really really thirsty for. Superficially, the desires of different people are different. Deeply, we all share one desire.

So, what is it that happens in love? In…

To love is to see that the other is in trouble. To love is to extend a helping hand. Love is not about admiring somebody’s physicality or using someone for some means. Love has to be an exercise in compassion.

Only two kinds of associations are right in this world.…

We need to see a lot of young people traveling on their own. We need to see a lot of young people living all by themselves for very long years, many, many long years. We need to see these things.

And we need to see young people who are much…

If a woman is good and fine, then her lover or husband would spoil her. Women must be honored for her intelligence, her qualities, for her inner strength. But when you start giving her importance for reasons like, her body is attractive and she is very sexually appealing, then you…

I cannot tell you what Bharat is by referring to the etymology of the word. If you ask me what is love, it would be foolish of me to say, “L-O means this, V means this, E means this.” If you ask me what is love, I will wait for…

Women like burly guys—and why do they like burly, big, and muscular guys? Because they are likely to have higher levels of testosterone. Unless you have testosterone, you cannot build muscles; you know that, right? And that is why you cannot build muscles, let’s say, after fifty or sixty. It’s…