Love or Sacrifice?

Being an Indian woman, years of conditioning have taught me to sacrifice. Sacrifice my needs, my wants, my desires, my dreams for the needs of others. But in my book sacrifice is a bad word. If you are giving up something for someone else it should be out of love, willingly, it should be an act of love, a giving, then it blesses you and the receiver too. But sacrifice implies that you are doing it out of obligation, it is forced out of you by conditioning, by a sense of duty, there is an element of force to it, albeit hidden. Or it is done out a hidden fear, as if you might lose something if you didn’t sacrifice..

So we have been taught to sacrifice, we are told the rewards are many, all to be reaped in the afterlife. And maybe there are rewards in this life too. For sacrificing allows a person to feel morally superior, self-righteous even, all the brownie points that you collect to be redeemed according to the Law of Karma. And often it is used as emotional blackmail, as in “I sacrificed my life for you and you can’t even do this little thing for me….”. It gives you leverage over others. But in the final analysis, in total honesty, if can you look deep into your heart, it is quite possible that you mind find anger and resentment, a touch of bitterness even, over all the things that you sacrificed, because you did it not out of love.

Therefore, above all, love yourself. Like Buddha said “You can look the whole world over and never find anyone more deserving of love than yourself”. Then you are brimming with love and it flows in all directions towards all things. Then there will be no need to sacrifice, because all your acts will be acts of love.