Question:

My 14 year old son is terrible to live with. He is disrespectful, hurtful, vengeful without any provocation… even when I come from a space of love, the reaction from him is horrible. I tell myself that it’s my karma and to go through it. I identify the element causing the feelings in me. The more calm and accepting I am, the worse it gets. As a mother I still need to do my duty and try to teach him values.. but am unable to get through to him. What should I tell myself about this situation so I don’t create more karma! Please Help!!

Answer:

As a mother, do your bit impeccably and then leave it to the Universe/God/Consciousness. Let the Universe do its bit! Don’t put a condition on life that it must listen to you. Live life unconditionally to maintain your own sanity.

Remember, you are not being calm if you are keeping expectations in your mind and furiously seeking for a change in him. Your expectation that he should listen to you is itself an attachment. This attachment creates Agami karma.

To learn to drop expectations is a skill that one must develop on the spiritual path. How?

By first recognizing what is an attachment?

Every raaga or dvesha is an attachment.

What is raaga?

A desire to attain, to achieve, to get, to receive something is raaga. A continuous feverishness to possess something/someone is raaga…..seeking…wanting…desiring…liking…craving…lusting is raaga.

What is dvesha?

An aversion to something/someone, dislike, not wanting,  rejecting, not accepting, running away from something/someone is dvesha.

Your expectations from your child/spouse/friend/beloved is either based on a raaga or a dvesha. Check yourself thoroughly. If you want another person to listen to what you are saying, this is an attachment. It creates an impression of raaga/dvesha.

That raaga/dvesha impression goes and sits in your karma bag. This impression of expectation will take its time to mature and one day it will come to fruition. The fruit of any feverishness is never able to provide the peace you are looking for. Your reaction to that fruit will again throw future agami seeds and the vicious cycle continues. You will never be able to come out of this cycle unless you recognize that the only way out of this cycle is to kill the seed….. DROP THE EXPECTATION!

Secondly, the person has his/her own karma and you must understand this. His /her karma might not be conducive to your expectation and therefore your expectation might not be met. So really the person is not at fault. It is just the complicated dynamics of Karma & Niyati at play.

Recognize this and drop expectations because expectations will only pull you down the ladder of spirituality! Keep moving upwards…. Charetveti! Charetveti!