Don’t do your duty!
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!
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