Social Duty

"Finaly, Guatama beheld a third god that was of Social Duty. 'Come now young Prince.' the god tempted 'how can you sit there; oblivious to the needs of the troubles of your people? You have tasks to attend to countrymen to lead and friends to appease!' But Guatama reached out a finger and touched the earth. In reply Mother earth was heard to say ' My son has the right to sit here' His temptations unanswered, the god of Social Duty retreated." Enlightenment of BuddhaSocial Duty. If you are doing exactly as is expected from the outside world, you might not be living the life you had expected. Are you trying to make other people happy without knowing how to make yourself happy. It is too much the same with trying to love someone else when you do not truly love yourself. The Golden Rule only works through self respect and self love. If you expect no better from the world but pain and mistrust, that is all you will be able to truly give back. If you love yourself and full of confidence in who you are and what you can do, you will love and respect others and it will be reciprocated. Now my father had worked with this lawyer in his office. When they had met he was fresh new lawyer just married. This man had done everything his Jewish family had wanted. Married the right Jewish woman from a respected family, bore a son, and followed a traditional occupation in law. Well twelve years go by and my father watches him go through a divorce and a messy custody battle. Also this man seems that he finds himself not enjoying his profession but returning to a high school passion. See he loves to turn wood, after many years he buys a lathe and begins to turn everything from pens to Kaleidoscopes. Well he becomes so successful at it he even turned a pen set for the Governor himself. But as a teenager, who would expect that a living could truly be had at turning wood. Most parents who gave up their dreams would not. Another corny popular phrase made popular by a shoe company, "Just do it!" expresses the basic concept of all magic. Tony Robbins even follows this principal, stop becoming something just be it and the money will follow. Stop pursuing happiness just be happy.

A twice ordained Rabbi had once said you can not find happiness through its pursuit but as only a byproduct of an activity that you fully love. How do you find that activity that you truly love. In the movie "Made in Heaven" the lead role of Elmo is a recently departed soul on the verge of returning to earth. He wakes up one morning to find a silver shovel leaning in the corner of his room. He asks the care taker of Heaven, this boyish looking smoking angel what it means. The answer was that ideas come some times in pieces as if something in the wind, that the shovel is only a symbol for the whole idea. Well Elmo wanders through his life from one planned goal after another, always having happiness elude him. Well it is not until Neil Young does this cameo of a truck driver ask him where he is going, does Elmo respond "I do not know where I am going , but where ever it is I am going to do great!" Neil Young then answers "Well when you do not know where you are going anywhere is great!" Much Like Percival in Eschenbauch's tale, it is not until the youth lets go of the reins of his horse out of desperation and exhaustion when all hope has been vanquished that he is led right to the Holy Grail. There is a river for everyone to follow. A river that is said that everyone before they are born chooses to follow. Some are more tranquil than others, and some are more rapid depending on the soul's character. But sometimes a new soul will choose a river that is not as fitting its disposition.

There is an old story that a new Soul was standing in line to choose what his first life was to be like. Not knowing what to ask, he started to question those around him. He first asked a happy smiling man who still showed the signs of age, even in heaven, what he should ask for. The Old Man just replied happiness"Simultaneously the Field Beckoned to him; like two frequencies seeking each other in the ether He wanted to play the best possible shot. And the best possible shot wanted him to play it. Wanted to be brought into physical existence by him. It already existed some other dimension, but some how that was not enough for it. It wanted to exist here, on the material plane. And it needed Hagen to make it happen. It needed a person An embodied soul. A Human Being." Steven Pressfield, Legend of Bagger Vancewith a large smile warming up his face. The new soul did not accept that as an answer because it was way to simple. So he started to ask various other souls in line who might not of been around the block as much as the Old Man. From the many he had asked, he came to the consensus that what he wanted in life was a Beautiful woman, a fast car, lots of money, and a big house. Well he gets up to Saint Peter and asks for just that! Wish granted and the new soul is born onto the world. In his adulthood he has found everything he wanted. But not without some strings.... See the beautiful woman he married he finds sleeping with the gardener, in his time of distress he can not find a true friend to console him for they only befriend him for his money. So he takes out his Porsche and runs it up to 150 MPH around a sharp bend and becomes a paraplegic. Now he is left alone with all of his money in his large house utterly alone, for he does not even want to keep himself company. Well on his second life he wishes to be poor and to have an ugly wife and a junker of an old car. As you can tell that next life was to have its own problems. The old adage is right "Be careful for what you wish for, because you might just get."

Much like if you are finding these pages helpful, you had put just the right words in the search criteria to run through Google's algorithms. It is all in how you ask the question, will you find the right answer. A lawyer was defending a man who was accused of not waving a lantern to warn the on coming train that the bridge was up causing several deaths. The lawyer believed the man's innocence up to the point when the Prosecutor had asked him if he did indeed wave his lantern that night. He answered with a stutter "Yes." The defendant's lawyer felt betrayed after the suspect was cleared of any crime, he thought the shudder was a sure sign that the lantern bearer was lying. The defendant had answered that yes indeed he was swinging the lantern, but commented that the lawyer had been asking the wrong question all of the time. For the lawyer never asked if the lantern was lit! Life is all in how you ask the questions. Most religious teaching after a certain point is always focussed on asking the right question formed in the best way to gain higher insight. Now back to Elmo, that shovel ended up representing a silver trumpet that made music people were going to dig. It was given to him by his parents from his last life after wandering around aimlessly on an abandoned piece of highway after all hope was gone. He let his own reigns go. Dharma must always be balanced by your own Karma. Dharma is how your position helps others as a member of a larger community. Karma is the respectful pursuit of your own pleasures through intellectual pursuits, sports, food, sex, and other activities of the senses. Be careful of your Dharma in case it gets in your way of your Karma, and vice versa.