EXPECTATIONS

 

LIVING WITH EXPECTATIONS

Life cannot be lived without expectation. Now, what do we mean by expectation? That is the question. Because within expectation, there is planning. If you want to go on a journey, you’ve got to plan your route. And by planning your route, it would imply that you expect to reach New York if you are going to New York.

If we are bound on the mundane level by expectation, how should the expectation be handled?

These little expectations are the things that make the world run. But in the expectation, the quality that is required, the quality which would not bind you, would be non-attachment. If you were attached to an idea, then you would feel disappointment. But if you were not attached to the idea contained within the expectation, then disappointment will not be there.

You cannot live a life free of expectation. That kind of freedom comes at a far later stage when you are just about to merge away into the Divine. Then you do not expect the mergence, for even expecting the mergence with Divinity is also a form of attachment, an attachment to the idea.

STRENGTH IS WHAT WE TEACH

All externalities can have no effect at all if we have the strength within. And that is what we teach. Strength, hope and courage!

Let all calamities come, and by facing them, the calamities dwindle away. We need that strength. We need to strengthen ourselves in such a way that come what may, we accept it. I accept the responsibility for what comes my way, and I will do something about it.

Expectations can be used in a constructive or destructive way, depending on how much you are attached to the expectation.

Planning is necessary. You plan to drive from here to San Francisco, and you’re not going to drive expecting to have a puncture or having the car breaking down. For then the drive would be so unenjoyable because what would loom in your mind is the thought of the puncture or the breakdown and not the beautiful scenery that you are passing.

The journey of life becomes a living hell instead of a living heaven. And yet we expect to reach San Francisco. But what is the idea in the mind? The puncture and the breakdown or the beautiful scenery on the way?

EXPECTATIONS

There lies the secret behind expectations. With a little conscious effort, with a little positive thought, one can definitely and truly and in reality change one’s entire patterning of thought which is another word for expectation because thought is the main constituent in expectation. People that do not expect in this practical, daily life would be people without any mind. They should be in a lunatic asylum. They become mindless.

Having the strength, the fearlessness, the confidence and all the expectations that I am potentially divine; and within my expectations, being of divine nature, no disappointment can befall me. Do you see how practical it is?

There again, we come to the attitude of life. As we proceed through life with all the expectations, fine, but be not attached to the expectation and no disappointment can befall. When there is no disappointment, then the result is joy. Then you fulfil your appointment with destiny. And destiny is to know one’s inner Self. Therefore, the Bible keeps on saying, “Man, know thyself.”

Knowing thyself as man includes all the opposites, for life can only exist here by means of polarities. There has to be contraction and expansion. Without expansion, there is no contraction. Without contraction, there can be no expansion.

When we say that we live with expectations and not attached to expectations, we automatically rise beyond the polarities, beyond pain and pleasure. We rise above it and find that equilibrium. You function within that equilibrium. The waters have become still, and you swim in the still, transparent, beautiful water. That’s what we are doing. We are swimming in this world that is called life.

… Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang US 1980 – 03

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