Today’s blog talks about  “right attitude”.  I thought I would share about how I solved my dilemma of yesterday, in which I (ego; self-directional) wanted to spend the morning working in one place, and my teammate ( a rule-follower) thought I should be somewhere else.
Context: this conflict was playing out only between my 2 teammates and me . My duties were not impacted in any way. I felt it was beneath my dignity to conform to my teammate’s expectations. I prayed fervently to know what I should do. As so often happens, I was not getting clarity.
At the last minute, my struggling mind hit upon the pole star I was seeking — what would be the result of sticking to my guns? The result would have been a breaking of cohesion for the 3 of us. My rule-loving teammate would have not trusted me going forward, and the 3rd teammate would have had to pick sides in a way. I foresee working with these 2 women for many years.
So, I took the pickaxe to my ego and chipped off a piece. The rest of my ego was comforted by the thought, “I’m doing this because, otherwise, she will lose trust in me, rightly or wrongly, and I have the power to thwart that.”  When we met online, the other two were nervous as to where I would be and how I would feel about it. I remained completely cheerful and made no reference to the conflict. I could feel their sigh of relief.
Listening in the car to talks by Asha on YouTube (I commute 2 1/2 hours daily) in which she reminisces about things Swamiji said, I found this nugget:  “God often doesn’t care which way you choose, He is just glad you have asked HIm.”  In fact, I am listening to the series on the Essence of the Bhagavad Gita, which helped me a lot to overcome ego in this case.
Thank you for indulging my sharing of my small but big-to-me skirmish in the Battle of Kurukshetra! 🙂
In Divine Friendship,
Kim Pradhan, Austin Meditation Group Leader