Sacrifice is of many types..
Sacrifice of life.. Sacrifice of living..
Sacrifice of thought.. Sacrifice of emotion..
Sacrifice of a right.. Sacrifice of a duty.. etc.,
Sacrifice is an act of one, losing something against his longingness of emotion for it..
Yes.. Sacrifice is painful..
And what compliments the act of sacrifice is surrender..
Surrender is an attempt of submitting oneself before something, which has attained a great sense of meaning and value in the perception and experience of the person, who is about to(going to) surrender ..
So, sacrifice is an external influence and surrender is an internal transformation..
Sacrifice is a psychological compulsion whereas surrender is a spiritual liberty..
Therefore, I never believe in the infliction of sacrifice as a virtue in the human psychology. Instead, it must be like introducing various forces and influences in the world and also in the universe that are far bigger than a person, to him and he must be habituated to surrender himself before them totally and unconditionally right from childhood..
This is what an act of prayer is..
And that must be the only institution of every religion…!
