Do your own part fully and stop keeping accounts of the other person's.

अपना हिस्सा पूरा करो, दूसरे का हिसाब रखना छोड़ दो।

On a difficult marriage. Most of what is called a marriage problem is two people each waiting for the other to change first, and the one asking the question is the only one in the room.

Premanand Ji Maharaj during satsang at Shri Hit Radha Keli Kunj, Vrindavan
What it means

Do your part fully and stop keeping the other person's accounts

This is the instruction he gives most often about difficult relationships, and it applies as readily to a marriage as to a brother, a business partner or an aging parent. Complete your own obligation properly, and stop running the ledger in which the other person's failures are recorded against it. The ledger is the thing doing the damage, not the relationship.

He points out how the accounting actually works, because most people have never looked at it directly. It is never balanced. Your own contributions are counted in full, including the ones nobody saw and the ones that cost you something. Theirs are counted at face value, without whatever it cost them, because you were not inside it. A record kept on those terms can only ever produce one result.

The consequence is that the ledger converts every ordinary interaction into evidence. A forgotten errand stops being a forgotten errand and becomes another entry in a case that has been building for years, and the response it receives is sized for the case rather than for the errand. Both people then experience the same conversation completely differently, which is why these arguments never resolve.

In practice

Living with this saying

He is not asking anybody to accept mistreatment, and he draws the line explicitly. Where there is real harm, judgement applies and distance may be the right answer. What he is dismantling is the running tally inside an ongoing relationship you have already decided to stay in, because in that situation the tally has no function except to generate resentment at regular intervals.

There is a practical claim attached that devotees test and report back on. A person who genuinely stops keeping score usually finds the other side softening, not because anything was demanded of them but because they have stopped being met by an accumulated case. He does not promise this and is careful to say the point does not depend on it. Your own part is worth doing whether or not it is reciprocated.

What it asks of you is to notice when you are updating the record, which is usually in the gap after something small goes wrong. Do not complete the entry, do not review the earlier ones, and do not compose the summary you would deliver if it ever came to a full accounting. Put the name there instead, do your own part properly today, and let the rest go uncounted.

A saying, not a certified transcription: a short statement of a position he has taken consistently in public satsang.

About this saying

Questions about this saying

What does Premanand Ji Maharaj mean by “Do your own part fully and stop keeping accounts of the other person's”?

On a difficult marriage. Most of what is called a marriage problem is two people each waiting for the other to change first, and the one asking the question is the only one in the room.

What is this saying in Hindi?

अपना हिस्सा पूरा करो, दूसरे का हिसाब रखना छोड़ दो।

Is this an exact quotation?

No. It is a short statement of a position he has taken consistently in public satsang, not a certified transcription of one recording.

Where can I hear him speak about this?

His satsang is recorded and published on the official channels. This site is an independent devotee site and is not connected to the ashram.

Keep reading

All 30 sayings

The Radha naam is itself the greatest mantra. God is not a judge waiting to punish you. The mind is not your enemy, it is only untrained. Do not give anger a second thought. Do the work fully, then hand the result over. Suffering is the distance between what happened and what you demanded. Service done to be seen is a transaction. You do not need to leave home. Do your sadhana inside it. Keep taking the name even when you feel nothing. Difficulty does not mean you have taken a wrong turn. The name can be taken anywhere. Nobody's permission is needed. Take only as much of the name as you can keep up daily. When you are ill, go to the doctor. Take the name alongside. What changes first is your conduct, not your feelings. Do not hand the mind the problem. Hand it the name. Do not weigh your life against one you only see from outside. The one who wronged you moved on. You are the one still paying rent. Children copy what is done and ignore what is said. Devotion that creates conflict at home has misunderstood itself. If it can be bought, it has nothing to do with me. Begin with the name. Study will follow the practice. Keep the practice running through the doubt. Certainty arrives behind it. With the name in your mouth you are never in an empty room. Put the mala where the phone used to be. Earn honestly, spend without cruelty, give quietly. The relationship does not end when the body does. Fix the routine before you try to fix the mind. Do your own part fully and stop keeping accounts of the other person's. The gap between what happens and how you react is the first real result. One instruction heard two hundred times gets acted on. Two hundred heard once do not.