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Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.
‘S’ has come here. I think he was asked to come particularly to accompany me and the party to Cherukolpuzha. Everything went off well except that 'L' was not there in the book counter where he should have been. There was a great rush and that time there were not enough people to look after the seekers. He is also assisting me in signing a number of letters. So I get an opportunity to talk to him. He also has an opportunity. He does not use it fully but still he does. During the course of the conversation one point that came to my mind is that this boy is very much given to spiritual austerity, something that all of you should know and also reexamine your own life and its application to austerity. Anything can become a tapas provided you make it so.
We are living in this world, the entire life should be considered as a tapas. Now the world and the life together will become a tapas for you provided you use your mind and intelligence to make it so. The world is full of contradictions and conflicts. Normally nobody would like to live in such a world. It is one thing to say that the world consists of a number of thrills, beauties, and exhilarations. But when you understand the world in full there is so much of conflicts and complexity that we will not like to live here. Everywhere people are stealthy, everywhere people are asking for regular money for doing any work. The entire administration manned by people is corrupt. Elected people also misbehave. At every point of time this corruption is there. You cannot say that it is done by government employees alone. After all people are not employees, they become employees. All of them are born in their own respective homes reared by the parents. So what is wrong with our people and the manner in which cruelties are reported nobody would like to live in this world even for half a second. At no point of time is there any safety or rest. How can we live in this world?
When you start thinking in this manner life becomes distasteful and unbearable. Such a life how will you live? You can only make it an austerity. Austerity is that pursuit or process whereby you put yourself into difficult conditions and situations and yet you pursue your life with a lot of resolve and readiness. That is what you have to do. People are not trustworthy. Everyone seems to be lazy, delaying and procrastinating. Reliability is not there. Attention is not there. Consideration is not there. In our Ashram also we always say, whatever work you do, do it as something very sublime and sacred. That feeling is not there. When you chant Vishnu Sahasranama or Bhagavadgeeta, understand that it is a great austerity from your side and a contribution to the pool of universal blessings and goodness. The work remains the same, the effort remains the same. The attitude and the objective with which you do the work, that alone or they alone are different. I always say, if God has asked me after describing the world, “Swamiji, would you like to go there and be born?” I said, “No, I would not”.
Our India has become spiritual only because of these natural calamities, natural conflicts and behavioural conflicts. In tretayuga, Sri Rama was reporting that Janah kaamaasakto vividhakukalaa cheshtana paraah, over powered by greed, people are given to a number of maleficent activities. Even in tretayuga, this was the case. Who would like to be in such a world?
I am finding and seeing that so many autistic children are born. What will the poor parents do? And such instances are increasing in number, mental imbalance, mental imbalance, mental disharmony. What is the point in living in such a world? And we cannot improve it from our side. What can be done? When you start thinking in this manner then the whole life of yours will become an austerity. You don’t have to go to the Himalayas or fast unnecessarily. You fast for the health of your body. That austerity part is very important.
Yesterday I went to Vyasa Tapovanam and about four or five of us sat and I was emphasizing on the austere nature of the Ashram. Unless the austerity is built up the Ashram will not have a back bone strong. So I told Shiva Priyaji to get away from the kitchen, focus on teaching the children, taking some classes, attending on the people who come there, especially ascetics and be very kindly and benevolent. The telephone reception should be good. People should have a very good spiritual response and impression. So this austerity part I thought I should make more and more clear. What you do whether it is an austerity or not you have to decide. I would like you to examine your own life and working asking the question, “Swamiji said that we should be austere and everything can be made austere. Am I doing it?” When you start thinking in this manner you will have to reach at the total divinity which is behind everything. And your role will be to spot it, to feel it, to discover it, to reflect it. When you start reflecting all fold divinity in your thoughts, in your perceptions, then the austerity becomes complete, the impurity part will decline and dwindle, become extinct, the purity part will get more and more enhanced. The secret is austerity, austerity, austerity.
Ultimately the austerity is by the mind and by the intelligence. Physical austerity is there like moderate eating, moderate recreation, moderate sleep, moderation in speech, non-harmingness in everything you do. All these are physical. But these physical austerities will result only when you are conscious of the austerity need and process by your mind and intelligence. So it will activate your intelligence to think about the difference between austere and non-austere ways of life.
You know our Ashram incurs quite a lot of expenditure. All this money is actually coming in the form of offerings. I have to think about and deal with money also. But the way I think about it is always as an austerity. If we have to pay a large bill and I feel doubtful how to pay, it is that austerity coordinate that starts working in me. I would like you to think about it, “Swamiji, how does money thought become austere”? I would like you to think about it and ask me. Why don’t you learn? Sometime you should come to me and ask whatever points you want to get clarified about. Whenever a process of sublimation is instituted in the mind with regard to anything whatsoever it becomes austerity. We call it austerity because it becomes a spiritual effort both in its nature and also in the outcome it aims at.
I was telling Ma today in the next three, four months, we should be loading the whole Vishnu Sahasranama into our website or any other medium. The Sahasranama should be chanted by Ma and Nutan Swamiji then repeated by the other inmates. Only then the listeners get an opportunity to repeat and learn. It cannot be just one rendering uniform. Similarly the entire Bhagavadgeeta also should be loaded. Now it should be an austerity for Ma, Nutan Swamiji and all of you, if you listen to my word and put it in the website. I want it to be done in the four months that we are here, April, May, June, July, August. That is the only time it will be possible. Every one of you should focus on this, tell Ma, remind her, request her, tell Swamiji also and before they become further old and further busy, let the whole program go into the website, Vishnu Sahasranama and Bhagavadgeeta. Gradually we must be able to upload Ekadasa Skandam also. Can you imagine when we upload it, it becomes a world treasure, a world facility, a world inspiration, a world guidance. Why don’t you make your life more and more austere, sublime, and equally fulfilling also?
What I wanted to tell about 'S' is, he is given to austerity and he tells me that he has been spending two and a half hours in saadhana, in meditation, something I have not heard from any other. Two and a half hours per day. Except the days he comes here and he had to go to the hospital to attend on his father or somebody he says in all other days for the past two or three years he has been meditatively doing austerity for two and a half hours a day. My dear son very good, very good, I compliment you and bless you. Keep the spirit. I only have one complaint about him. In spite of it to devote his life wholesomely to this spiritual knowledge in that he is not clear nor does he have a full inspiration or persuasion from within himself. There I find an inconsistency.
Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.
