Trying to Fulfill Others' Expectations? || AP Neem Candies

Acharya Prashant

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Trying to Fulfill Others' Expectations? || AP Neem Candies
Why do you want to burden yourself with miscellaneous expectations? You are not obliged to live up to anybody’s standards. You are not obliged to live up to even your own standards. If there is one obligation, it is to adhere to the standards of the absolute. Your personal standards do not matter. Read more.... This summary has been created by volunteers of the PrashantAdvait Foundation

Acharya Prashant : It's alright to expect from yourself or from others, but the only right expectation is that you or the other, or anybody would move towards peace, silence, Truth. If that is the expectation, and if that is what you could not live up to, then surely you are entitled to feel disappointed and guilty.

But if the expectation is anything else, then why are you promoting it or subscribing to it?

I repeat, this is the only expectation you must have from yourself or from others — that they will move more and more towards peace, and you will move more and more towards peace as well.

And if this expectation is belied, you are justified in feeling betrayed.

Why do you want to burden yourself with miscellaneous expectations? You are not obliged to live up to anybody’s standards. You are not obliged to live up to even your own standards. If there is one obligation, it is to adhere to the standards of the absolute. Your personal standards do not matter.

And all the standards that you know of, are all personal. The person behind them might vary. The system behind them might vary. Some of them might be purely personal. The others might now be socially acceptable. Some might appear coming from one person, and others might appear coming from a widespread network. It doesn't matter where the expectation or obligation is coming from. How are you bound to conform to it? When did you internalize this external order, and why?

Just ask yourself one question, "Am I alright? Am I peaceful? Or is my mind laden with thoughts, desires, miscellaneous stuff all the while?" Expect yourself to live in your innocent, naked, real nature. And don't measure yourself against any other criteria, benchmark, standard. Nothing. Nothing.

You know we know only two types of people. One - who lives by the others' expectation. We find it easy to call them social slaves. And then there is another kind, that live by their own, personal benchmarks, who set their own standards. We idolize them. We call them individuals. The second type is in deeper slavery than the first type. To live by the thoughts and opinions of others is bad enough. To live by your own thoughts and opinions is worse.

If the mind is peaceful, if the sight is clear, if you can sit peacefully, if you can listen attentively, you are alright. Expect no more.

This article has been created by volunteers of the PrashantAdvait Foundation from transcriptions of sessions by Acharya Prashant
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