I always tell people, ‘Do not think you have a certain amount of energy and you will work according to that energy. No. Whatever work and responsibility you take up, the energy starts expressing accordingly. You will have energy according to the responsibilities which you take up. Whatever responsibility you take upon yourself, you will see that your inner space expands to that extent and energy flows through you!’  If you feel responsible for whatever is happening around you, you suddenly become a leader. You start transforming your life and others’ lives.

Responsibility is one of the ways to consciously grow.

You only need to do two things: trust that life is good and know that you can expand to the responsibilities that you take up. Another thing, when that expansion happens, just hold on and have patience during the transformation process. Patience during the transformation process is what I call tapas or penance. There is a beautiful phrase of the teachings of Shirdi Sai Baba : ‘Shraddha, Saburi’ – trust and patience. This is the essence of life.

Enlightenment comes with a tremendous responsibility

Trust that you can expand in your life and then you will expand for all the responsibilities and commitments you take up. Have patience when the expansion or the transformation is happening in your inner space. That’s all. Nothing else needs to be done. We seldom have either trust or patience. That’s why we just reproduce the same past into our future. Why don’t we allow big breakthroughs in our life? Because we don’t trust that life leads us into a new space. Have trust and patience. The simple truth is that when you take more responsibility, you just expand and more energy starts expressing through you.

Responsibility is one of the ways to consciously grow. Taking responsibility for others is the technique for enlightenment. That is what the Bhagavadgita calls karma yoga. When you really feel that you should do the karma, the action of taking the responsibility for others, you will not even bother about results. Just out of your compassion, just out of feeling responsible, you will start working. Working out of overflowing energy, overflowing compassion, and the overflowing feeling of responsibility for everything, is what makes a life spiritual. Working out of overflowing responsibility instead of greed or fear is what we call spiritual life.

Understand, enlightenment comes with a tremendous responsibility. It comes with a tremendous ‘pressured’ compassion. ‘Pressured’ is the right word to use! Your whole being will be vibrating with an intense compassion, with a very deep compassion.

Be very clear, responsibility is a consciousness.

Let me tell you one incident:

Early one morning, Vivekananda suddenly got up and said, ‘I have a deep pain in the right hand.’ At that time he was lying down on a bed. He said, ‘On this side of the ocean, some country is suffering from some natural calamity. Please find out where we are needed, and send our swamis to go and do the relief work.’ The next morning they received the news that there was an earthquake on a nearby island. All the swamis rushed to do the relief work. Vivekananda was sensitive to and actually felt the pain felt by people so many miles away!

With enlightenment, practically the whole cosmos is felt inside your body. A deep pressured compassion lands on you along with the enlightenment experience. Understand, it is a great responsibility. It is not just freedom. It is a great responsibility too. Most of us wait for the status to come in order to take up the responsibility. Be very clear, it doesn’t work that way. Only if you take up responsibility will the status come. Those who wait for the status will not take up responsibility even after they get the status! They will simply find another reason or excuse, that’s all.

Be very clear, responsibility is a consciousness. Many people think that if they get enlightened, they will get a golden throne. They think that somebody will give them food and a place to stay. They think that people will worship their photograph. If you see the status of the enlightened master and try to achieve enlightenment for that, you will feel cheated! If you see the state of the enlightened master and try to achieve it, you will be successful. You will be happy. You will enjoy it. That is the difference between state and status.

source: Living Enlightenment