Articles for Saadhana

Harih Om Tat Sat. Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.

Mā was telling me today that I should speak about how to cultivate qualities and what is the means, particularly introspection, what is its relevance in this connection.

My dear children, cultivation of qualities means what? You want to have a flexible and healthy body. So the flexibility of the body is ensured by exercises. Flexibility of the body means flexibility of the different parts of the body. Suppose your finger is not alright. Then what should you do? You should administer different types of movements to the fingers. If the elbow is to be flexible, then you will have to move the elbow and make it flexible, not once but a few times, many times.

Normally in the day’s life and activity, all the different parts of the body are generally exercised. But if our life does not involve all-fold movements, then the exercises will not be all-fold. So there is problem. So there also, to cultivate your limbs, what do you do? You employ them in a systematic manner, activate them and keep them employed.

Don’t you think, parallelly to cultivate qualities which belong to the mind and the intelligence, you have to employ the intelligence with a view to make them qualitative? Why don’t you think about it in a very simple manner? You want to have patience, you want to have tolerance, you want to have reconciliation - the ability to reconcile with factors. First of all, you try to know that such qualities are there. So, we must get exposed to these qualities either by reading a book or talking to people.

I had some problem in using the computer. I did not have a proper computer table. So I used it on a regular table with the result I had to move my mouse in this manner (Swamiji demonstrates). I didn’t know! But I started finding so much of pain and discomfort on the shoulder and I started thinking it was because of Delhi cold, so eight types of dress I put on. I didn’t know what it was due to. From somewhere, the information came that something should be done to correct how you use the mouse of the computer. Then I changed my mouse from the right hand to the left hand and still I continue to do it.

Meanwhile it occurred to me that I should find out what is the discipline necessary to use a mouse. So I went to the Orthopedic Surgeon in Trichur, Ram Kumar, whom I know. I said, “I have come here only to ask you one question. Let me know at what height I should keep my elbow.” He said, “When you sit, (look at me) where is your elbow, at that point you should keep the keyboard. It cannot be like this. It cannot be like this. (Swamiji is demonstrating through actions). Whatever is the level of your elbow, in that level you keep the keyboard of the machine. Generally, it is adjusted. There are two levels in the computer tables. Then the chair is also adjustable. So, adjust the chair to suit your height.” I said, “I don’t want anything else” and came away. So, even now I am using the principle and discipline which Ram Kumar told me and my pain disappeared.

Then I started taking exercises and massage etc. Here, there was so much of stiffness. I started massaging, massaging, a lot of pain was there. I am a very good massager. I can massage and take away this Spondylosis in about three-four days. But I have not started though I should start a clinic. But I have to exercise my toe with so much of pressure, I can use it only on one or two people, not more, because of so much (effort).

What I want to tell you is that cultivation of mento-intellectual qualities will be in the mind and intelligence itself. How will you cultivate? First of all, you know the qualities and you think about them, think about them, wish for them, wish for them. ‘I must have this quality. I must have this quality.’ Your mind should spend sufficient time on the quality either by thinking about it or trying to understand it or trying to think about the people who have these qualities and what they have done.

I generally try to say mind hours you spend on the quality. I wanted to say 100 mind hours but all of you will gasp. So I have reduced it. Fifty mind hours you have to spend on a quality. The mind should feel that ‘I must have this quality’. You meditate upon the quality, reflect upon the quality, introspect over the quality so that the mind will be on the quality. And after some time, you will find the mind consciously is qualitative.

I happened to read the Ashtavakra Samhita in Kolkata in my pre-sannyāsa life. Janaka asked Ashtavakra Maharshi, “How can I get wisdom, knowledge? How can I get dispassion and how to get liberation?” Instantly, Sage Ashtavakra answers him:

Cultivate these qualities - kshama, ārjava, daya, toṣa, satya. Consider them to be nectar and cultivate them, he says.

Kshama means patience and tolerance. Ārjava means straightforwardness. You know, this one quality of ārjava has kept me occupied ever since I read it. My reaction was this, why this ārjava is put here? Are not people supposed to be straightforward? Are we not straightforward? Why is it mentioned as a quality for liberation, moksha? What is the reason? So I was wondering why this ārjava has found a place in this.

Daya means compassion. Tosha means contentment. I always tell people, you have lips and teeth, why don’t you smile? They are not at all easy and relaxed. Somebody would have said something in the morning. That person would have forgotten it. You remember it for one week. The person who has said it, he has forgotten; but you have picked it up and you remember it for seven days. I sometimes wonder. You have no other job to do. He has said it. Maybe that, you can discuss with him and tell him; but why carry this tension, dislike etc. for such a long time? So many people can commit so many mistakes. All people need not appreciate you; some people should depreciate you also.

So straightforwardness! What is straight forwardness? Say whatever is to be said. Whatever you have in your mind, when you are asked, just disclose it and mention. Have you had your food? ‘Yes’ or ‘no’. What is your name? Do you have parents? ‘Yes’ What are they? Who are they? Are you married? What have you studied? Do you have an employment? Are you a good person? You should say ‘yes’ or ‘no’. ‘I don’t know’. Then are you not a fool not to know what is good and whether you are a good person? So try to understand who is a good person, what is goodness.

So this straightforwardness. There was a Brahmachari here. He also took up sannyāsa. Right from the beginning I used to tell him, “My dear boy, you have stealth in you.” I told him many times but he was never prepared to remove it and now he is almost mad, wandering on the streets. I believe primarily it was stealth. So, understand what it is to be stealthy. Be straightforward. We want you to be straightforward not for our sake, for your sake. If you are straightforward, your mind will be light, open and easy. If you are not, you will have a heavy mind, a problematic mind, a tension-causing mind.

There was a Brahmachari who came here and stayed for a few months. When he started speaking lies, he will speak one lie after the other in a beautiful chain. So I asked him, “My dear boy, how do you manufacture so much of lies?” He said, “Swamiji, when I start answering a question, I am not myself. I am a devil.” He went away from here. I did not ask him to go but he found that his lack of openness would not allow him to stay here.

In my life I had no problem in cultivating qualities. Whenever I found that this was a quality, that is a quality, the other is a quality, “Oh! it is a quality”. What is a quality? It is an ornament to our personality. Just like you get gold ornaments and put on your neck, wrist etc. this is ornamental to your mind and intelligence. Everybody will like. Suppose you are a loving person, who will not like you? If you are sympathetic, people will like you all the more; if you are considerate to others, adjusting.

Every quality is an embellishment, is an ornament, an enrichment to your system. So, just like every limb of yours should become flexible, then only you are healthy, make sure that your mind is flexible with a number of qualities. Mind grows by qualities and concepts.

Intelligence grows by knowledge and the effort to know. So give intelligence some problems, some questions and let it think about it and find an answer. Newton saw an apple fall. He said, “The apple suddenly falls?” After some time, another apple fell, another apple fell. All of them at different points of the tree, all of them fall perpendicularly to the earth. So he was wondering why should these apples fall, they can as well go up or go tangentially. All the others picked up the apple, ate and went away. But Newton alone started thinking about why. And he thought about it for one year. Then only he could discover the law of gravity of the earth. So your intelligence will grow when you take up questions and the intelligence devoutly tries to find answers for them.

I always used to feel, why should we speak truth, what is the harm in speaking lies. So I had the responsibility to find out why we should not speak lies and what will lies do, what is the harm. Because I find sufficient harm and disorder in speaking lies, the question of lie never comes. Truth is the way of life.

You go to book a railway ticket, nowadays it is all online booking; so you book a ticket for a travel after three months. Or people who go to the Railway Station, they give money, they give thousand rupees and get a ticket for Rs. 840. You give the money, he gives the ticket and balance, both of you do not doubt. He received 1000 and you received the ticket and the balance. You take the ticket and go away. After 3 months, when you go to the Railway Station, the train arrives and you find your name written in the reserved compartment. Tell me what is it, truth or untruth.

You carry a 500 Rupee note, go somewhere and ask for change. They will give you change for 500. They accept your note and give you different pieces totaling 500. What is working there - truth. There is a bus saying that it goes to Kochi or Ernakulam. You get into the bus, pay the bus fare and it takes you to Kochi or Ernakulam. What is that – truth. Suppose it is the other way around, then can you travel? Then where is the question of speaking lie? Truth is a statement of fact, as it is.

So, any quality is an embellishment, is an ornament to your mind. Understanding this whenever you see qualities, immediately the mind should pick it up and think about it very lovingly, fondly, lovingly, fondly. I have one point to say. Love the qualities and they grow in you. Anything that you love, it will grow in you.

Cultivation of qualities is something very simple, easy and beautiful. Start loving them, they start growing in you. And the growth will embolden you, make you stronger and stronger. It will make you stronger and stronger. Everybody will like you. Even now, people are looking for people of qualities. What are the qualities? Trustworthiness, accountability, efficiency, commitment, dedication, exclusiveness, resilience, a feeling of mutuality with others. You must try to be open and include all in your mind. Be social and societal. As you live in home, you also have to live in the society. You also have a professional front. You are not a child of a family. You are a citizen of the country and then of the world. There is no household citizenship. It is only an address. But you are a citizen of the country. You get a passport from the government.

So, have a national feeling. I am a member, a citizen of my country. I have to love the country and help it at every point of time. By my life, the country should become stronger and healthier. The whole society is a body and individual is a cell. A cell in our body if it is infected, you will find the whole body is affected. Similarly, if an individual speaks lies and is flouting laws, then the society will be affected.

Now we suffer from corruption. The corruption is not limited to the administrative desk. It is everywhere. It is in the postal system, it is in the delivery system, it is in the industrial system, everywhere, everywhere, corruption, corruption, corruption! I think if you put it to a plebiscite, people who want corruption will be more in number, I am afraid.

There should come a time when we are intolerant of corruption. All people should feel enough and more. “We don’t want; we want a pure society”. The time has not come. So, the quality is something that makes your mind stronger, stronger. You will be able to work better, more efficiently, learn well, execute well.

Our body completes its growth at 21. What makes you efficient, not the body. Efficiency is in the mind! It is by knowledge, how to do a job. Whenever people get promotion and come to me and I tell them, “You have been promoted. I don’t know what is the type of job that you do. But I set three standards for you. You may be able to contribute by your special finding and all that, but at least do this. There is something called Economy of time, Economy of effort and Economy of expenditure. One or more of these you must be able to contribute by your profession to the Management, to the company.”

A job that takes one hour, try to do it in 50 or 45 minutes by making different adjustments and studying the manner of working. You have to take an article repeatedly. Where will you keep it? On the left side or right side if you are right hander? What is the distance at which you sit from the table? Every time you have to move your right hand, so the article should be kept close to your hand. Because every time, half a second, one second additionally you are using. There is an economy of time and similarly effort. That effort can be economized.

One ‘J’ came to me in Delhi. He was telling me “Logistics is my department; I am a specializer” etc. “The Singapore Government called me to give a talk.” I said, “J, you tell me what is this logistics, one or two instances where you have done well.” You know what he told me? Two wheelers were being transported in trucks. Normally they will be kept horizontally and will be sent. He found out a method whereby (look at me) all the two wheelers were kept vertically. You know, nearly three times a truck could contain. I said, “I don’t want anything from you, I have got my information.”

Just see? Every time you should be able to think how to better, how to improve. It may be in the kitchen work. If you come and look at our kitchen, even here I think, everywhere there is one table and the gas stove also is kept there. Gas stove itself will be 4 to 5 inches. Then there is a vessel which is about 6 to 8 inches. There is a spoon you put in it. And to stir it you have to keep your hand like this. You know how much of strain it brings! So when we were making the new Anna-kshetra I said that this gas stove should be kept at a lower table. That means we will have to make a new one.

So, we have made a lower table for the gas stove and I called Mā and the others to say, “Let us be very clear at what comfortable height can you work.” And then, we have lowered the table. But I have never found such an arrangement in any many places. In our bathrooms, you will find a kind of a table is there, a slab. Everywhere I go, people use the bucket down below and they pour water. All the dirty water will go and strike the bucket. I was feeling so awful. I used to say let us have a slab.

One Bengali woman who was a very good writer, a film person, she was saying, “Swamiji, we have never found a facility like this anywhere in the world.” If you take the water from the bucket, what will be the suitable height for it? You must be able to dip it and take, dip it, take and pour. Several times you have to do it. And when water falls on the ground, it should not be spilling on any of the articles down below. I believe we have to be careful. We have to be intelligent. I think there must be a sense, a fine sense in you. You have to understand life is an art. So, incorporate as much of disciplines and refinements.

Lastly I will tell you. Dr.Sreedharan when he was the Managing Director of Delhi Metro (he is a disciple of mine), I said, “I would like to see your Metro.” So he brought his vehicle and took me. We got into a vehicle from Delhi Ashram. I asked him, “Sreedharan, you are handling a very big task of the Government. I would like to know, what are the qualities which enable you to function well.” He said, “Swamiji, only one quality - integrity”, he said. Integrity!

We have got a world record. What is that record do you know? There are so many corporates in this world. In the corporate life, it has been found that the Chairman or Chairperson of the different big corporates of the world, only the one who has integrity has been able to elevate his corporation to a higher level. Only he who has integrity has been able to elevate his corporation.

So I started speaking about three ‘I’s many years back, many years back. The three ‘I’s that make a man great. Do you know what are the three ‘I’s? One is intelligence, the second is integrity the third is industry. To be industrious means to be hard-working, persevering. Intelligence, Integrity and Industry are the three qualities which make anybody function well and be great to any extent. Remember this.

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.