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Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.
Yesterday I spoke about how love and fondness for good qualities can be cultivated. The moment you know that a quality is good, a fondness, a craving for it is inevitable in any good human being. Today I thought, as Ma particularly pointed out yesterday after the talk, something about why we are not able to cultivate or feel the fondness for good qualities.
Our sastras which are nothing but cultural discoveries, cultural evolutions, cultural practices, habits, and allied matters have gone into the subject very, very seriously. And one aspect of this culture is that an uncalled for identity with the body and too much of care and concern about it. There are some people who will always like to say, “I am not healthy. My body is not alright. I cannot walk, I cannot stand, I cannot sit, I cannot see, I cannot hear”. They are so much attached to their body that they are not able to have a kind of a flexible and an agile body. Every one of you should examine, “Do you like to be lying on a cot or do you like to be moving about till the last point of your life?” “Oh, today I have this pain, that pain. I cannot do anything”. I think they revel in saying that “I cannot do, I cannot do.”
In our talks with the brahmacharins and the inmates in the ashram, we try to emphasize that, “You should not become so much body conscious”. Consciousness of the body is so much. Are we to be pampering the body, or are we to be employing the body discreetly? Of what use is the body if we are not able to employ it for our purposes? In this matter, I believe the people of the west are far better than we are. Physically challenged people, they go on crawling. And sometimes they open the bolt of the door with a lot of difficulty. And the people there are taught, whenever they do something like that, don’t go and help them. Let them themselves exert the body in spite of their challenged nature and let them get used to it. A cripple will walk in a crippled manner. A hunch back will walk in a hunch back manner. I think it should all be encouraged or permitted at least.
But we Indians have a different idea. “Oh, he cannot. So let me help”. Even in bringing up the children, whenever they fall and get hurt, we go on consoling them unnecessarily. "See, it is very usual that you fall and get hit. Get used to it. I will massage you for a while, but don’t make a hue and cry." I think we should tell the children like that. There are some people who will bring up the children when they fall, they immediately take the child. “Where did you fall? And we will beat the earth, beat the ground.” Is this the way to teach the children? It's very natural. Sometimes you trip. Doesn’t matter. So many times you are going to fall. If you can reduce it, well and good. You have fallen not because of the ground. You have fallen because of your own carelessness.
I think this excessive attachment to body and to say, “I am sick, I am sick, I am sick, I am sick”. If you have health, you will also have ill health. The entire world is consisting of dvandvas, pairs of opposites. In the sphere of the body, you have hunger and appeasement; you have health and ill health, day and night, pleasant and unpleasant, favour and disfavour, you have heaven and hell, this world and the other world, day and night, happiness and misery, intimacy and separation, love and hate, fear and courage, riches and poverty, affluence and the opposite of it, insufficiency. I think we will always have these. If the pairs of opposites were not there in this world, life would not be interesting at all. Suppose you eat one time and the whole of that meal is sufficient for whole life, do you think you will like it? Nobody would like it. We should have our food, appease our hunger. In a few hours we must fall again hungry. Again we have to appease. We have to sleep, we have to get up. Again we should become tired and we should sleep, again get up. Some times we will have a lot of enthusiasm; some times we will not have it. Some times we are very active, sometimes not so. I think it goes on changing.
Kṣaṇe kṣaṇe yan navatām upaiti tad-eva rūpam ramaṇīyatāyāḥ
This is Kalidasa’s statement. What is meant by beauty or beautifulness? Kṣaṇe kṣaṇe yan navatām upaiti, it puts on a new form moment after moment. And this kind of a transitoriness is the beauty of beauty itself. tad-eva rūpam ramaṇīyatāyāḥ. So I would like ‘X’ and others, she has raised the subject, to examine and let me know whether each one of them is excessively attached to the body. “Oh, today, I am not well. I cannot do this, I cannot do that.” Are you taking refuge under ill health?
Physical ill health is one factor. Our mental response to it is a different matter. I always used to tell our people here, Mataji and Ma Ji and the others, “Even when you are sick, lie on your sick bed and still do either with your eyes or with your hand or with your voice whatever work is to be done. You should be sick for a minimum number of days." In the hospitals also they have started saying, even after a knee operation, they ask patients to walk the next day. Previously rest, rest, rest, rest. Now they have understood, the body is not supposed to be rested for long. Of the 24 hours of the day, 6 to 7 hours of sleep are advised. Seventeen hours we have to be active. Seventeen hours mean how many, you say? Let us say maximum 8 hours sleep. So double that period, you have to be active. So are you to be active or are you to be inactive? Ask this question.
In the same manner, whenever you hear about a good quality, “Oh, it is good. I must have it”. For what else we are born in this world except to imbibe good, be good, be amiable, be benevolent. Any good quality will make you dear to the others, pleasant to the others. You will be happy and contented in the hands of good qualities and the others around will also be happy that you are qualitative. If these two requirements are met, what more do we want?
You want to be good and you want to be appreciated by the others. Your character and behaviour and interaction should be such that, people may dislike you for other things, but the manner in which you behave, conduct yourself, they like. And such a person is a dire need in this world. The world may have quite a number of people. But an amiable man, a lovable man who will give you a loving ear, a loving heart, such a person is very, very rare.
We are all born of parents. But I don’t think all of us are blessed to have such parents who will always be available to us to hear whatever we want to say and to give us the timely redress and support us. This is why 'suhṛt', the word ‘suhṛt’- what does it mean? Always he will do something that is good for you. Who is a friend? A friend is one who always likes to help you with his friendship. Who will not like such a friend? Oh somebody gives you a ring. “I would like to have this job done.”
“Oh, I am busy I am very, very sorry. I wanted to do so much but I cannot do, please excuse me.”
Is this a reply that you expect from a person?
I am sometimes wondering. Our body is completely grown at the age of 21. Now the qualities which are to be developed by us are only in the inner personality, and you can develop them till the last breadth of your life.
So to summarise the whole position, it is your excessive attachment to the body and the pretensions which arise that make you averse to good qualities. Laziness is very bad, it’s a crime. Be effective, be effortful, be striving. That is the quality we want to have. So do not like to sit idle at all. Try to think, try to read, try to be involved.
Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.
