The Spirit of Responsiveness
May 21, 2020 • Conversations on the Spiritual Path, Learn

The spirit of responsiveness is the spirit of seeing what needs to be done and doing it without having to be told to do so. “We are down to the last square so I will replace the toilet paper with a new roll so the next person does not have to do it”. “The trash is full so I will take it out.” These are some examples of the spirit of responsiveness.
I remember a few years ago when I was in Germany speaking at a few events. My friend came to pick me up from the hotel I was staying at. As I walked up to his car which was parked by the side of the road I noticed he and his son were cleaning some plates that had fallen out of the car and shattered on the sidewalk. His 6-year old son just jumped into the cleaning process without being invited. He was picking up the pieces with great attention. And even when his dad walked away to throw everything into a dumpster he continued to clean the sidewalk. His dad did not ask him to do so. He just did it because it needed to be done.
This is the spirit of responsiveness. A quality of mature souls. It was truly inspiring to see a 6-year old so deeply ingrained with this spirit.
One way most people often judge others is by age. Physical age does not matter really. A 6-year old would be considered young and therefore has much to learn. True. But how old is the soul? That’s what I ask myself when I meet people. And there are many tell-tale signs to give you insights on the age of a soul. The spirit of responsiveness is one of them.
Why is this the quality of a mature soul? Well, in order to be responsive one needs to be observant. Observation is the first sign of the awakening of the superconscious mind. And to function in the superconscious mind one needs to diligently work on himself. Spiritual practices and personal discipline need to be part of his life. Only mature souls diligently work on themselves so that they can function more in the superconscious area of the mind. The spirit of responsiveness is then simply a by-product of their spiritual practices and personal disciplines.

An Easy Target
This article, as one of my readers so nicely put it, is about “…success as a subject and a target for criticism.” “If men perceived their own faults as they do the faults of others, could misfortune ever come to them?” ~ Tiruvalluvar Many years ago I was having a cup of coffee ...
Read More
America … I love
Eleven years ago I made the most difficult decision of my life. The decision to not renew my monastic vows and hence to stop living a life as a Hindu monastic. I left my guru’s monastery in Hawaii and instead of going back to Australia, I moved to the mainland US. Many years prior to…
Read More
Lesson Noted, Lesson Learnt
A couple of weeks back I was speaking with an entrepreneur who shared with me that she got involved in a personal issue with her client that she should have stayed out of. At that time she felt it was harmless to get involved in the conversation but later the whole thing played out unpleasantly. ...
Read More
Commit to a path
It’s only when you commit to a spiritual path can you truly make progress. In fact, this applies to any path leading to a clearly defined goal. But people are terrified of commitment. They would rather, as my guru would say, “be committed to not being committed”. Commitment for most means a givi...
Read More