My husband is the root cause of all my problems.
My mother in law is the root cause of all my problems.
My flat-mate/boyfriend/girlfriend is the root cause of all my problems.
My parents are the root cause of all my problems.
I went with the most catchy title but it’s about whoever or whatever you think is the source of most of your problems.
Everyday we renew our determination to be unattached. We cast our eyes back and look at the past objects of our love and attachment, and feel how every one of them made us miserable. We went down into the depths of despondency because of our “love”! We found ourselves mere slaves in the hands of others; we were dragged down and down! And we make a fresh determination: “Henceforth, I will be the master of myself; henceforth, I will have control over myself.” But the time comes, and the same story repeats. Again, the soul is caught and cannot get out. The bird is in a net, struggling and fluttering. This is our life.
It is very difficult, but we can overcome the difficulty by constant practice. We must learn that nothing can happen to us, unless we make ourselves susceptible to it. I have just said, no disease can come to me until the body is ready; it does not depend alone on the germs, but upon a certain disposition which is already present in the body. We get only that for which we are fitted. Let us give up our pride and understand this, that never is misery undeserved. There never has been a blow undeserved. There never has been an evil for which I did not pave the way with my own hands. We ought to know that.
Analyze yourselves and you will find that every blow you have received, came to you because you prepared yourselves for it. You did half and the external world did the other half – that is how the blow came. That will sober us down. At the same time, from this very analysis will come a note of hope, and the note of hope is – “I have no control of the external world, but that which is me and nearer unto me, my own world is in my control. If the two together are required to make a failure, if the two together are necessary to give me a blow, I will not contribute the one which is in my keeping; and how then can the blow come? If I get real control of myself, the blow will never come.”
We are all the time, from our childhood, trying to lay the blame on something outside ourselves. We are always standing up to set right other people, and not ourselves. If we are miserable, we say, “oh, the world is a devil’s world.” We curse others and say, “what infatuated fools!” But why should we be in such a world, if we really are so good? If this is a devil’s world, we must be devils too. Why else should we be here? “Oh, the people of the world are so selfish!” True enough; but why should we be found in that company, if we are better? Just think of that.
We get what we deserve. It is a lie when we say, the world is bad and we are good. It can never be so. It is a terrible lie we tell ourselves.
This is the first lesson to learn: be determined not to curse anything outside, not to lay the blame upon anyone outside, but be a man, stand up, lay the blame on yourself. You will find, that is always true. Get hold of yourself.
~ Swami Vivekananda, Los Angeles | 01/04/1900
Whenever we feel very low in life, there is a tendency to ascribe it to one or two things – mostly a relationship or blood-sucking job but rarely is it true. Nothing is really holding us back unto the relationship or the job but our desire to get something favorable out of it. I am in it for me.
Credit: a post by VivekaVani on youtube; Photo by mohamed Abdelgaffar from Pexels
never not now 