In a small village, there lived a young woman named Nanda who cared for her elderly, bitter mother. The mother had once been kind, but after losing her husband and enduring many hardships, she became angry, manipulative, and controlling.

Nanda stayed, believing it was her duty.

Her mother often said: “If you ever leave me, I will throw myself into the river.”

So Nanda stayed. She stopped dreaming. She stopped laughing. She stopped living.

One day, an old monk passed through the village. Nanda offered him rice out of courtesy. He looked at her and said:

“Your eyes are full of tears that are not yours.”

She was startled. She had not told him anything.

“Your heart carries a burden that cannot be lifted by staying,” he continued.

“To truly love another, you must also love their freedom—and yours.”

Nanda wept. She told him about her mother and how she could not leave without becoming a bad daughter.

The monk told her this:

“Imagine a lotus growing in deep mud. If the lotus stays in the mud out of loyalty, it cannot bloom. It must rise through the water toward the light. Only then can its fragrance bless the very mud it came from.”

“If you stay in the mud, both you and your mother will remain trapped. If you rise, your light may show her the way out—or it may not. But both of you will at least have the chance to change.”

Nanda asked, “But if I leave and she suffers, will I create bad karma?”

The monk smiled gently.

“Staying in suffering is not the absence of karma. It is the creation of karma. To stay in a cycle that destroys two lives is not virtue—it is fear disguised as love.”

“Your task is to rise. Not to pull her with you. That is her task.”

Nanda left the village with the monk’s blessing. Years later, her mother sought her out—not to curse her, but to ask how she had found peace. The mother had changed—but not because Nanda forced her.

She changed because Nanda dared to bloom.

The lesson:

Sometimes, staying feels like loyalty.

But staying in a cycle of suffering out of fear is not love.

True compassion honors not just the other’s needs—but the possibility of growth for both.