HOPES And EXPECTATIONS
HOPES And EXPECTATIONS – Why are today‟s humans so stressed and troubled? What is the root cause of their anxiety? The answer is their „Hopes and Expectations‟. The more we hope for and expect from worldly materials and relations, the more we fall into stress and anxiety. When we get close to someone or increase our attachment with them, indeed, we increase our expectations from them.
We ourselves spin the web of attachment and hopes, but unknowingly our consciousness gets bound in it, and we cannot free ourselves. This whole process begins from thoughts.
This world has as many thoughts as the number of souls in it. Indeed, numerous thoughts are generated in one individual. Moreover, bondage or liberation of each individual depends on their own thoughts. Liberation is obtained when all thoughts cease. Therefore, scriptures reveal that the actions accumulated in the past lives, become the cause of reincarnation and death.
There are numerous types of thoughts, and different thoughts have different secrets. The thoughts which are associated with materialistic illusion are responsible for the cycle of birth and death. However, the thoughts which encourage selfless service are the cause of salvation.
Different thoughts keep coming continuously; even when we sleep, thoughts arise in the form of dreams. What are these thoughts? Thoughts are the form of desires. For example, when the desire to meet someone originates in the mind, humans get absorbed in those desirous thoughts.
These thoughts become the form of resolutions and choices. And these same resolutions and choices become the cause of reincarnation in the form of other species at the end of human life. The type of thoughts at the time of death will decide the next steps in each soul‟s journey.
Great Saint Shri Kabir Sahib Ji states:
=> As much as you increase your attachment with family and materialistic things, your worldly hopes will increase correspondingly rather than your true hope of uniting with God. Therefore, instead of expanding this attachment, you should reduce it. Those who increase their attachment with the material world will have to repent at the end and despairingly return from this world.
Great Saint Shri Kabir Sahib Ji further states that:
We should keep in our hearts the only hope to chant the Name of the Lord, and destroy all other hopes. If your heart becomes home to other hopes, then an endless cycle of birth and death will begin. Getting out of this cycle will become an impractical question.
The Divine One Shri Guru Amardas Ji Maharaj enlightens us:
that building up its hopes, the world dies, but its hopes do not die or depart. One‟s hopes are fulfilled only by attaching one‟s consciousness to the True Lord.
We see that all Learned Ones enlighten us to control our hopes. Additionally, it has been stated in the beginning of this chapter that the process of hopes begins from thoughts.
Therefore, if we want to control our hopes and expectations, first we will have to control our thoughts.
Gracious Saints enlighten us:
The Lord teaches us: Why do you worry day and night about the world? You must meditate on me (The Lord) alone. No stressful thoughts will come near to you if you meditate, connecting your mind with me.
Human beings can attain God by meditating on His Sacred Name. The moment they attain God, it means they have automatically attained salvation. Now, they are not required to follow any other means to attain salvation.
To conclude, thoughts give rise to hopes, which further give rise to expectations.
Hence, worldly hopes and expectations give rise to the cycle of birth and death. However, if we follow the teachings of the True Master, we can certainly free ourselves from all bondages of the world.
We pray at the Holy Lotus Feet of our True Master to bestow His magnanimity over us and bless us to rise ourselves up from worldly thoughts and meditate as per His divine commands.