(Synopsis of a lecture given by Jagadguru Shri Kripalu Ji Maharaj on October 24, 2009, in Bhakti Dham, Mangarh, India)
So the simple fact is that as long as you are under the control of Maya, you will have every fault and these faults will remain with you in the future.
No amount of effort, no matter how great, will free you from these. All actions originate from the mind, and the mind believes that happiness is found in the material world. After experiencing material sense objects and still not finding happiness, anger is inevitable. What is happening day and night in your home? Your father, mother, son, and spouse are all making you feel miserable. You can’t find peace anywhere. You may regularly say, “What a father I have gotten!” or “What kind of mother is this?” or “How did I get such a spouse?”
But what about you? Think about yourself, also. You say, “No one listens to me. No one cares about my happiness.” But whose happiness do you care about? Just look to yourself if you want what is in your best self-interest. You are harming yourself even more by looking at others and seeing their faults.
If you thought about the fact that you are at fault, then you would be less concerned with the bad behavior of others. Someone without a nose can’t call noseless people names. Only a person who has a nose can call someone without a nose ‘noseless’. We have to fully accept what we actually are. True Saints who were beyond lust and greed openly expressed in their writings,
Mo sam kaun kutil khal kami.
“No one is as devious, wicked and lustful as me.” They wrote such words for everyone to read. But those who actually have these faults don’t want to hear even one word of this. “My neighbor called me devious! Can you imagine? Devious!”
So the desire for respect and the consequent bad feelings that arise on being disrespected are two enemies that are constantly after us. They are the reason that we do not accept God to be God nor do we accept a Saint to be a Saint. They cause us to keep on committing spiritual transgressions, and to keep on fighting with our parents, children and spouses.
We say, “My wife insulted me!” “My husband dared to call me characterless! Me!” Don’t you know that today is April Fools Day? “Oh, I didn’t realise that my husband was playing a joke on me.” But if it’s April 2 instead of April Fools, just see what kind of situation arises from those very same words. But how many women are not characterless? What does it mean to be characterless? What does it mean to be a chaste or faithful wife?
Once a faithful wife was pounding rice with a pestle. Her husband said, “Just give me a little water.” She had just raised the pestle in the air, but on hearing her husband’s request, she removed her hand from the pestle. Miraculously the pestle remained suspended in mid-air and didn’t fall down. She gave water to her husband who drank it and then left. She returned to her work. Her neighbor saw this and asked, “Sister, where did you learn this magic?” She replied, “This isn’t magic. This is the result of being perfectly faithful to my husband.”
The neighbor thought, “I am also faithful. I haven’t had any kind of physical relationship with any other man up to now.” When she went home she told her husband, “Look, when I raise this pestle, ask me to bring you some water.” Her husband asked, “What is this all about?” She replied, “By the power of my faithfulness, this pestle will remain suspended in the air.” Her husband was very impressed. “This is great! We could even earn money from this!” He went some distance away and said, “Bring me water.” She let go of the pestle and it fell, striking her nose. Her husband said, “What kind of faithful wife are you?”
She want to her neighbor and started fighting with her, “You have spoiled everything in my home!” Her neighbor replied, “Sister, a woman is considered a faithful wife only if she has not had even a single negative thought about her husband.” How can a woman who fights with her husband ten times a day be called faithful? Whether one is faithful to one’s Guru, one’s spouse, one’s mother or to God, this all has one meaning – the mind should not harbor even a single negative thought towards the object of one’s love.
So we have all the faults because we are under the control of Maya. If we accept this fact, we will develop humility. If we are humble, we will not desire praise and we will not feel resentful when we are reprimanded or corrected by someone. This is why the first instruction of Gauranga Mahaprabhu was to be humbler than a blade of grass and more tolerant than a tree. A blade of grass bows down when trampled upon. A tree gives its fruits and shade to everyone, even those who throw stones at it or strip it of its bark and branches.
From within, we should offer genuine respect to everyone. This should not be just an external act, such as when we say, “Sorry!” Do you genuinely feel that you have done something wrong when you say this? No, it is just an external act for the sake of etiquette. Day and night we keep on saying to others, “Sorry,” “Thank you,” and “I love you,” but this is just to fulfill our own personal self-interest.
So God and the Saints advise us to stop all this acting and get real. When you say the word ‘sorry’, feel that you have done something wrong and that you won’t do it again. If you do not feel this, and keep on saying, “Sorry!” and keep on repeating the same mistake, you will never improve. Saints have exhausted themselves and become hoarse by repeating these instructions over and over. We have heard these same guidelines repeatedly from the Vedas and other scriptures. We listen to them, but do not put them into practice, because this means we have to put in constant effort, and this goes against the wishes of the mind. For this reason, a Guru tells you that your mind is your real enemy. You have to go against it and not give in to its desires.
Swami Ram Tirtha used to be very attached to apples. To overcome this, he placed an apple before himself and kept on looking at it until it became completely rotten. He was stubborn, “I will not eat it! I will not give in to my mind!” Similarly the great Saint Ramakrishna Paramahansa, use to put dirt in one hand and money in the other and keep repeating, “Taka mati, taka mati, Money and dirt are the same.”
Diogenes was a great Greek philosopher. He used to practice begging from a stone statue. He would say to it, “I am hungry. Give me something to eat.” People thought, “He was such an elevated ascetic, but he has gone completely mad!” Someone else thought it would not be possible for such a great soul to be mad, so he asked him, “Why are you begging for food from a stone statue?” Diogenes replied, “I know it won’t give me anything. I’m practicing not getting angry. This way when I beg at four or five homes and I receive no response, I don’t feel any resentment. I don’t feel bad and think, ‘Just look at this person! He has so much but he can’t spare two or three slices of bread’.”
Even nowadays, when a street beggar doesn’t get anything in alms he thinks, “This person is sitting in an expensive car and he can’t spare me even a few coins!” Most of them don’t say anything, but some say it out loud.
(Continued in Part 3)
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