We do not want anyone to lord over us, and that is the most insulting and humiliating thing that we can think of. Even when we work in an office as a subsidiary to someone else, we feel that she should be treated with dignity and honor, that befits every human person. Just because I am subordinate to someone else, does not necessarily mean that this person can treat me as s/he wants. When my dignity and honor are in stake, I may find ways of getting out of such situation, unless I am ready to face all humiliation and dishonor in order to cling to the job. Sometimes it is a question of survival vis-à-vis living with dignity.
If that is the case with most of us, when it comes to handling problems, difficulties and challenges, especially related to human relations, we often tend to let others take full control over us. In other words, we joyfully and unconditionally hand over the key to our inner self to others, and when they begin to control us, we feel bad for dancing according to their tunes. Most often we tend to behave according to the expectations of others, and that is the reason why it is so very easy to make us happy or unhappy. Others know what can make us tickly with joy, and what can bring tears in our eyes, and they would make use of this formula wisely in order to get the maximum out of us.
My proposition in the above paragraphs may have remained still a riddle; let me put it across plainly. I have realized that I take the words, behaviors and response of people towards me so very seriously, that everything they say or do to me affects me, positively or negatively. I could check for myself: how easy it is to make me float in the clouds of happiness; a few words of appreciation or flattery is all that is required. Or how easy it is to make my blood boil – a few words of contempt, of indifference, or insult. In either case, I have given the key to my secret inner self to others, and they can make me either happy or sad, as they wish, and they are absolutely sure I would respond to them as expected. Is it not a sad situation?
In such circumstances, our life becomes just a monkey play; if the keeper were to tell me something, I would do it promptly. If he asks me to jump, I would do; if he asks me to kick him, I would do, without thinking if I should really do what he tells me. But is it possible for me to respond differently? Of course I can, and there is not a single soul on earth who can question me why I responded differently. It is all a matter of re-programming my mind, so that when I get impulses which can either make me happy or sad, I tell myself that I would not be carried away by the impulses. Giving in to either of the impulses can lead me to doom, and I can find hundreds of examples for this.
Ultimately what would I want to do? I should not allow anyone to control me, through prompting a particular kind of impulses. It would be safe for me to defy their impulses and be what I am, and what I wish to be. In other words I should not be easily carried away by the words and actions of others; they may say whatever they may wish to, but I can still decide to take it or not, and to be moved by it or not. This is the situation when I truly become a spiritual person, not disturbed by praise or blame, and Bhagavad Gita would say that such are the persons dear to the Lord. When I do not allow myself to be touched and controlled by what others say and do, then I hold the key to my inner self, and am truly the master/mistress of my soul, and that is when I truly begin to live my life.
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