Master and Slave
Just as a sense of security is important for us, in the same way, experiencing harmony with our environment is another one of our needs; it is just as important. Consciously or sub consciously, we strive to attain harmony with the things around us; with people or in our work. When there is harmony we experience peace. Wherever there is a mismatch between us and any aspect of the environment, it creates stress and sorrow.
For example say there is a mismatch between an individual and the temperature around him, he will experience stress; even the body will show stress chemicals. If there is a mismatch between an individual and the personality of his colleague at work, there will be stress. All are busy in this world, subconsciously trying to create ‘harmony’ with their environment in their own way. One reason why some want to build a castle is so that they can keep the bad guys out and create their own micro-environment of harmony.
The ideal situation for disharmony is when an individual becomes a ‘slave’ to something in his environment. To understand this, let us take a model of a prison where we have a prison officer (a master) and a prisoner (a slave). The prison officer is the one who decides for the prisoner, who in turn has no choice. This is what is meant by prison and it is the worst punishment in many countries. The prison officer decides what he is going to eat, what he is going to do; everything that affects whether he will be happy or unhappy! He may choose to give the prisoner chocolates and make him happy. All along the prisoner doesn't have the freedom to choose.
Creating Masters
In this free society, do we personally have any prison officers or masters? Let us see how we create our own masters. For that let us take an example of a mother and her daughter, who creates a small expectation from her mother. The expectation is that her mother will invite her to the family gathering. She may have her own reasons to create this expectation. 'My mother has invited everyone else so she has to invite me!' Or 'My mother has invited me every year and so she will invite me this year.' The moment she creates an expectation, the mother is in charge of fulfilling this expectation. She has no choice. Let us say, the mother chooses not to invite her and the daughter finds herself upset. What are the dynamics?
With expectations the other person, in this case the mother, is given power and the daughter is losing power. The other individual becomes the master, in the sense that she is in a position to make her happy or unhappy. Her mother did not choose to be a master. The daughter created an expectation and with just that becomes one with a 'slave-mind' within their relationship. If an individual is in the ‘slave-mind’, then they will behave in a predictable way. The master is in control and has as if got all the buttons. The master presses one button and the slave will be upset. The master presses another button and the slave will smile. If she was not in the slave-mind, then she would be able to choose to remain happy or loving or peaceful, not others. Nothing can be expected from a slave, he cannot choose to experience peace or love. Hence the first emphasis in the spiritual journey is be free from the slave-mind. The message is; be your own master.
Ordinarily we may be careless about creating expectations in relationships and as a result go on creating masters. A slave has the lowest quality of life and is the lowest denomination in the social hierarchy. Paradoxically in confusion, we create the slave-mind in ourselves. We may have many reasons to create expectations. We can say, 'I have done a hundred favours for the other person and so they should at least do me one favour.' The argument has reason and logical, but the moment an expectation is created, a slave is born. The spiritual principle is that our great actions of the past don't give us a right to create expectations.
We may be very innocent in believing that expectations are a small thing. However each expectation is creating a master and a new bondage in that box! The more masters there are, the lower the quality of life. Externally one may be a king, but if he create a slave-mind, then the quality of his inner life will be that of a slave. For example, imagine a servant is supposed to serve the king with coffee at a certain time. If one day the servant was to decide not to serve His Majesty with coffee and the king gets upset, who would you say is the real master? Even a king can create a slave-mind.
Many of our expectations may be very entrenched as we take many things for granted. The smart formula for this life is 'be prepared for the unexpected.' The world outside is not in our control.
It doesn’t take long to create masters. Say you see a beggar who is hungry and you give him your lunch box. The beggar opens the lunch box and says 'I don’t like this', throws your lunch box in the recycling bin and tells you some bad words! How do you respond now? If you are upset, who made you upset? Here is a beggar who you don’t know at all, a complete stranger and he has the power to upset you. How did that happen? You created an expectation. The expectation may be that he eats the food! Or that he should be grateful to you. Those who are doing good work need to be more observant. Having done 'good actions' you may feel justified in expecting some form of return.
We don't just create expectations in relationships. We create expectations from strangers and from objects; with our cars and gadgets. There are expectations from our systems such as the transport system, from our Government and leaders. As a result we create masters in all directions.
In our practical life, we all make plans. Even as we execute these plans, we would be wiser to not take the results for granted and create expectations. We have the option to remain aware of the unpredictable nature of this outer world and remain masters.