Based on your education, samskara, upbringing, your social circle and your professional life – all of which play an important role in your conditioning – you expect yourself to be a certain way before others. You have set for yourself certain benchmarks and standards derived out of information passed onto you in many forms; normally based on the religion you practice and the company you keep in addition to other social and personal factors.
When these expectations, the ones you have from yourself, are not met, they give birth to shame and guilt. You feel low and tormented. In a state of as much denial as disbelief, you feel miserable and lost. You eternally stay buried under these expectations, majority of which is a big load of rubbish. With mindfulness you can filter them, keeping the ones that strengthen your consciousness and make you a more compassionate person.
From Others
Our second big load of expectations come from our relationships with others. We justify the expectations we have from others believing that we rightfully deserve to be treated a certain way; whether it is in the form of reciprocation, love, things, words, gestures. Based on all that you have observed and absorbed, all that you have been told and taught, and all that you feel you have done, you desire a certain outcome, often favourable. Because you feel what you desire is legitimate, just and natural, you add to the burden of expectations. The beauty and love in most relationships gets crushed under the weight of expectations. If the two partners in a relationship could lower their expectations they have from each other, love in such a relationship will only flourish.
Expectations put pressure on the one you expect from, all the while increasing your own burden of expectations. When these expectations are not fulfilled, they give you grief and disappointment proportionate to the magnitude of your expectations. Make a list of all the people you care about and what all you expect from them. When done, know that they expect just as much from you. You relinquish yours and with your purified energy they will accept you the way you are, gradually lowering their own expectations from you. That’s how nature works.
Others’ from You
Anybody you know has some form of expectation from you. Even those, whom you don’t know but are connected to you in some way, somehow expect you to be a certain way. Your priest, government, fellow citizens, strangers on the road – they all expect you to be a certain way. If you accidentally bump into a stranger, you are expected to apologize. You are expected to dress in a civilized manner. These expectations are there so the society remains in order, but the world doesn’t take it too kindly if you break them.
You are under constant pressure from peers, bosses, friends and family. You have laid your burden on them and they have laid their burden on you. Whether or not you fulfill their expectations, just being aware of the fact that they expect from you is generally sufficient to stress out most people. Expectations disturb tranquility. I am not saying they are good or bad, or that you should let go of them. I’m simply bringing to the fore the impact expectations have on people’s lives. From the perspective of a meditator, an expectation is merely a desire we are holding onto. Our ego thinks we must see through this lingering thought. When ego clings to a desire, it transforms into an expectation.
When we are unable to let go of our thoughts, some of them become emotions, and then we attach emotions to our desires and expectations. This is where a thought is transformed into a potent force nudging us to take action. Emotions are the giant killer waves that knock the surfer off his surfboard. They influence the nature of and intention behind our actions. And action, I may add, is the final stage of a thought, for the life of a thought ends where action starts.
When Thoughts Become Things
Mulla Nasrudin went to a department store to buy a pullover for his wife. While he was at the checkout counter, a flash sale was announced offering 40 percent discount to customers who paid within the next 60 minutes. Soon, out of nowhere an army of female customers rushed to the counter and Mulla found himself getting pushed and pulled in various directions.
He tried to be patient and polite but even at the end of one hour, he was still at the end of the line because of the wild crowd. Upset and frustrated, he stuck out his elbows and started pushing his way through all the women around.
“Don’t you have any manners?” a lady yelled. “Can’t you act like a gentleman?”
“No, ma’am,” Mulla said loudly, “I’ve been acting like a gentleman for more than an hour. Now, I must act like a lady.”
Why are we sometimes forced to behave in a manner which is contrary to our nature? It may seem that external circumstances propel us. The truth is we imagine our life a certain way and when things don’t pan out how we envisaged, we feel sad, frustrated or depressed. Our restless mind then prods us to act so we may get what we want. Note two important words here, ‘imagine’ and ‘want’. Imagination is nothing but pursuit of a train of thoughts. When we contemplate on a thought, we are basically imagining. And when the same thought stays, it becomes a desire or an emotion. For, a want is a desire which again is a lingering thought. Why are some people more prone to negative or lusty thoughts than others, for instance? It mostly boils down to our tendencies of the mind. Patanjali gives the most beautiful definition of tendency in his Yoga Sutra.
kleśamūlaḥkarmāśayodṛṣṭādṛṣṭajanmavedanīyaḥ11
Psychic imprints, resulting from karma, accumulated over many lives condition the mind and cause one grief.
The word karma here is meant to signify action and not destiny. Imagine a spinning wheel painted with bright spectral hues. Since it is spinning its face appears illusory white. In reality, there is no white colour on the wheel. It’s the momentum, speed at which it’s spinning that’s creating the illusion of white when the reality is far more vivid and colourful. Similarly, mind is always moving. Like the spinning wheel, it creates an illusion of reality of the material world. It makes the world look like a permanent place. However, that is not so.
In knowing your true nature, the one independent and cleared of all conditioning, your mind must acquire certain stillness. To attain that stillness and examine the nature of mind, its movement must cease. It must stop spinning. It is only after such cessation that you can see the real colours. With an ever moving mind, we remain oblivious to the impact of our actions. Every action leaves behind a residual trail. Whatever we do with speech, actions or words, leave an imprint on our mind and in our lives. This realization, however, comes to a still mind, a mindful mind. A sprinter running a race has no time to sit down and see what others are doing. He’s too busy getting to the finish line. Similarly, a mind engaged in reckless pursuits has no time to reflect on its own actions.
Action, further is of three types and each one leaves behind an imprint based on its type. Physical actions may produce tangible residue whereas verbal and mental karma create psychic imprints.
The residue of karma may fade over a period of time (sometimes lifetimes) but it doesn’t completely get destroyed unless you consciously work on erasing the imprint. Our actions don’t condition us, their residue does. How? Let me walk you through with an example while elaborating on the three types of karma.