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Harih Om Tat Sat. Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.
Yesterday I spoke about some of the behavioural patterns of people. I thought I would speak a little more about it. I want you to think as to whether you want to be successful, good and appealing in your character and behaviour at all or not. Do you want to be loved by people? You cannot be like a cat who closes the eyes and drinks the milk thinking that nobody in the world is seeing me. Even the subtle and unseen elements of your behaviour, people will notice. Let us be very clear about it.
When you live in a group, there are many eyes looking at you. While you have your opinions about the others, they have their opinions also. In this interactional process where every individual is having his reactions, is bound to have his reactions, what is the guiding principle which will make you happy on the one hand and also appealing to the others? Why don’t you think about it? Just like we think about God, we think about Moksha, we should also think about what is that behavioural pattern, behavioural principle by virtue of which one will be peaceful and harmonious in himself and he will also have appeal for the others. Is it not a worthy question to take up?
Whenever you have confrontations, if you start getting angry, first of all, anger creates fire and smoking. It is something that heats you up and you are not happy about it. Except that you can say “I have got angry, I have said what I wanted.” But actually, it is an agitational process. You will not be happy and by being angry you become more distanced from the others, the sense of appeal gets reduced and maybe they have a reverse attitude and reaction to you.
By anger, what do you get? You are only defeating your purpose. You are becoming unpeaceful and you also make yourself unacceptable to the others. They will not have any love and fondness for you. You may argue “I don’t want”. Then others also don’t want. Go and live in a forest in the company of animals, they may not also like you.
Our peacocks are coming here when we started feeding them. Sometimes they come very near the building. Then somebody will have to notice they are coming because there have no food in the plate and they produce a number of voices. These voices, initially you may like it, but it is a disturbance and I am wondering, I thought peacock has got a much better voice and cuing but I find no, it is not so. So, we have to accept the sound that they produce and we have to make sure that we feed them regularly. Even if the servants who are doing it fail in doing so, we must able to discover. One must have eyes to see, ears to hear, mind to think.
One of the inmates who is problematic for everybody here, one day I called that person and in the course of the discussion, the person started bursting into tears in such a manner that my throat started getting choked uncontrollably. That day I decided, I will not talk anything the least harshly to this person, not only that, to the others also. Because the crying was so much pathetic, agonizing, afflicting and tormenting. If a person can have so much of sorrow on this issue, I said, I have to take that into account. That it is right or wrong is another consideration that the person is in a distress. So, I decided I will only be specially soft. I hope at least eighty to ninety percent I have been able to maintain it, but there are points where the behaviour is not all right. Right in my front, when I say please keep quiet, “No, no, no, no”.
In a close interaction you will find there are different kinds of people. But understand that all have come here as devotees and everyone wants to improve but they are not able to improve in the manner in which you want. So, what I would like you to do is, any time you get angry, any time you find intolerance, it is always subjective and personal, subjective and personal. You become intolerant because your nature is to become so. You are suffering only because of you. When you start thinking in this manner, will you not start improving your side? After all, I always say we are not haters. Nobody hates one another. It is all irritation during the course of the interactions. And what can be done? Nature has given us a mind and inner framework which becomes irritable, which becomes fault-finding. There is a lot of arrogance in us, arrogance, arrogance. Why she? Why he? Why the other? I don’t think it is to be approached with arrogance. In the thirteenth chapter of Bhagavad Gita, Krishna lists twenty principles and virtues. And it starts the first one, have you ever thought about it?
अमानित्वमदम्भित्वं
amānitvam adambhitvam
(Bhagavad Gita 13.8)
Amānitva means I am a respectable person. Therefore what? Put a board here ‘I am respectable’? Wanting to show that I am respectable and wanting to be treated as a respectable person. Suppose you go to a place where they don’t know that you are a respectable person, what can be done? What can be done? The society is varied. Some people may know to respect you, some people may know not to respect you. Right from the beginning, living here in a village and the people around, they don’t know anything about me. Right from the beginning, my challenge, my persecution has been to have to talk to people who do not have the level and, what shall I say, the culture to deal with a person like me.
We had a person, who first of all came here to have me speak for Asianet. He was a Christian. I told him right then “I am very happy that you have come, but I have two reactions to express. One is being a Christian, whenever I go on talking about Hinduism and Hindu Dharma, will you be able to appreciate it? So, I will always have a feeling of reservation, may be a lack of fulfilment also. That impetus to speak may not be there. Secondly, I am happy that at least a Christian has taken up this mission, that is okay. And out of our gratefulness to him, we continue to keep him, keep him, keep him, keep him. Once or twice I called him and spoke to him that we have enquired from the others and they say one episode will cost maximum 1500, but you are charging 3500.” Then suddenly he said, “Swamiji, it is better to entrust the job to them.” Is this the way for any businessman to talk?” I did not tell him anything. Still I wanted to be grateful to him.
After some time, matters became worse and worse and at one point even ‘Y’ and ‘Z’, all of them said, “Why not we have a discussion?” I said “No further discussion. Let the programme stop.” Then this ‘A’ and party providentially came here. We discussed with him, he said “Yes.” Our ‘Y’ went to the studio and saw it. He said they will be able to do it. I said “Let us entrust the job to them. If they cannot do, let the programme stop. No more continuation with him.”
Then he came here alone. I called him to my office. “Mr. X, what shall I tell you? What did you say the other day? We called you for a discussion and when you said this, you shut our mouth. It is better to entrust the job to another person. What further can be spoken? Is this the way any businessman would talk? Okay we are entrusting it to some other person with a lot of reluctance. Why are you coming here and asking us to change the decision?” And there were other wrongs also.
From a Bombay person, a very poor person, suddenly he went there, they must have trusted him. That lady sent 5 lakhs of rupees, the money she had kept for buying a plot of land. He did not tell me that he got the money from her, whereas he had discussed his visit to that family and with this five lakhs he purchased a camera and all. So, we thought that this contact will result, will lead to many of such money being taken by him and we don’t know how far and where all it will reach.
So I told him, “Mr. X, I only have to tell you that you don’t know to deal with or to behave with a person like me. I am very sorry.” This is what I said finally. We did not exchange any hot words. Earlier I asked, “Have you added enough money so that you will have an income?”. So many times, we asked him, “Give us a breakdown of your expenditure”. He refused to give. Not I, ‘Y’ and the others, ‘Z’ and the others. But even then, I was grateful to him and we continued to keep him for more than one and a half years or so to see that he has enough of benefit, financial benefit because he has come here and taken up the program.
See, whenever you don’t know to behave with others, don’t think you can escape. How many times I am telling this to people! Many of them accept, some of them are obstinate. “No it is not so. No it is not so. No this is so. No this is so. No, no, no. It is not that.” What is all this? Why don’t you go into your own mind and find out “If I get angry, I am responsible, if I get displeased, I am responsible for it.” If this introspection is there, that is what spirituality repeatedly wants, I think the world will become heaven. Let us at least make our Ashram, our Centres heavenly first.
Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.
