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Sai Baba's Messages on our duties in daily life
In your daily life in the family,
there are three types of duties which may be considered to be
three aspects of Dharma.
SOCIAL DUTY
These duties express themselves in
different ways. First consider an example of social duty. Assume
that tomorrow is Sunday, which is a holiday for you. You may want
to invite some people to come to your house for tea. Suddenly in
the night, you develop a fever. While you are sick, you realize
that if you were to invite your friends to visit the next day, you
would not be able to receive them properly, and so, it would not
make you or them happy. Therefore, in consideration of your
obligations to your friends, which you would not be able to
perform while sick, you decide to postpone the tea party. On the
basis of the change in circumstances and your consideration for
your friends, you change the tea party to the following Sunday.
You are free to make the arrangements that fulfill both your
wishes and your social obligations.
OBLIGATORY DUTY
Next, consider an example of
obligatory duty. Let us say you are a lecturer in the university.
In connection with the upcoming examinations, the department head
has directed that the whole teaching staff of the department
assemble for a meeting. As this is an important department
meeting, you will have to attend. Even if you are suffering from
fever, you take some aspirin pills and go to the meeting. This is
an obligatory duty and you have no right to cancel this. The
scheduling of this meeting was not in your hands, and once it has
been called, you are expected to attend.
FAMILY DUTY
Now, consider an example of family
duty. You are in your own house. There is a small family quarrel
between husband and wife. Inside the room, the husband and wife
are having a tiff. She is very angry. Suddenly, the door bell
rings and he goes out to answer it. He finds that a co-worker had
dropped by for a casual visit. As soon as the husband sees the
visitor, he greets him with a smile and a fond hello. He asks the
visitor to be seated. With the visitor he is quite cordial. When
he enters the bedroom and tells his wife of the visitor and finds
that she is still very angry with him, he may resume his stern
tone. But as soon as he goes into the other room to meet the
colleague who has come by, he carries on with his friendly
conversation. It is his duty to protect the good name of his
family by conducting himself in such a way that an outsider would
not know that he had quarreled with his wife.
If a person who is angry with his
wife inside the bedroom comes out into the living room and
irritatedly asks the visitor to leave the house, then the guest
will be appalled. It is important to see to it that the secrets
and confidences of the family are not thrown out into the street.
This is an important duty of a family man. He must be ever
vigilant to protect the honor of his family. If by his
indiscretion the family honor is destroyed, then there will be no
happiness for him or his family throughout their lives.
SENSE-CONTROL IS THE KEY TO DOING
YOUR DUTY PROPERLY To
protect the good name of your family you must remain alert and
aware of others' needs; this requires sense-control. If you do not
have sense control, as was explained in a previous chapter, you
become arrogant. One who is arrogant and devoid of sense-control
is nothing but a demon. If you want to practice and protect
dharma, you have to develop sense-control. For everything
worthwhile in life, sense-control is very important. Krishna said
to Arjuna, "Arjuna, be a wise man, and have complete control over
your senses. Do not obey the fickle cravings of your senses. The
senses must be under your control. You should not become a slave
of your senses. Make them your slave. Be their master. It is only
when you have mastered the senses that you will have earned the
right to be close to the one who is the one who is the originator
of all the senses and has complete dominion over them."
In the second chapter of the Gita
all the qualities of a wise man have been explained. Of all these
qualities, sense-control is one of the most important. In this
chapter we have been exploring some different aspects of dharma,
which can be seen, like the rays of the sun, to have seven colors
or facets. As has been pointed out at the beginning, this sunlight
of dharma contains the rays of truth, character, righteous
behavior, sense control, penance, renunciation and nonviolence.
You must make all of these your own.
Try to understand the meaning of
these Gita teachings and practice them in your daily life. It is
Swami's wish that when you have taken so much interest in studying
these teachings that you should also evince the same degree of
interest in practicing their meaning, and thereby acquire all the
good qualities that are conveyed by them.
TIME WASTED IS LIFE WASTED
The Lord declared in the Gita,
"Whoever remembers me is very dear to me." Therefore, remember the
Lord always. Offer him your mind and your will. Surrender
everything to him and you will quickly reach him."
In the Gita the Lord taught that joy
and sorrow, cold and heat, profit and loss, criticism and praise,
must all be faced with an equal mind. This equanimity of mind is
one of the most important attributes of a true devotee. There are
many other attributes of a true devotee, but these are all
contained in two principal qualities: discipline and renunciation.
Discipline refers to the three types of penance: bodily penance,
mental penance and vocal penance. Renunciation refers to
understanding the defects in objects, and living a life which does
not get attached to these things; in other words, living as a
witness. If you can incorporate these two important qualities,
discipline and renunciation in your daily life, then there will be
no need for any other spiritual practice.
START YOUR SPIRITUAL PRACTICE WHEN
YOU ARE YOUNG If you
want to develop these two qualities you have to start in your
childhood and use this early period of your life in a sacred and
ennobling way. In the world today many people undertake spiritual
practice only when they reach old age. After they have thoroughly
enjoyed the objects of luxury and have become disgusted and
exhausted by worldly pleasures, they consider embarking on the
spiritual path. Having spent their lives concentrating on sense
objects, on family life, on children, on wealth, on properties, on
name and fame, they become disillusioned in old age. They realize
that there is nothing true in these things and that peace of mind
and lasting joy cannot come from the phenomenal world and from
worldly pursuits. After they come into the evening of their lives
and are haunted by the emptiness of their experiences, they begin
to do spiritual exercises.
But in old age, when you are suffering from all sorts of physical
and mental weaknesses, it will be very difficult to practice and
live a rigorous spiritual life. Even then you should not be
discouraged, thinking that there is no possibility for spiritual
advancement in old people. Opportunities for spiritual experiences
are certainly available to them. Instead of not thinking of the
Lord at all, it is far better to think of him, at least in old
age. When it comes to thinking of the Lord, there are no
restrictions whatsoever with respect to time, place or age. That
is why the divine teacher has declared in the Gita, "At all times,
in all places, think of me." But he has also declared that the
best opportunity for practicing these spiritual exercises in a
determined way is in your youth. When your physical strength, the
strength of your sense organs, and your mental strength are there
in abundance that is the best time to undertake spiritual
exercises.
The process is something like reserving a plane ticket before
embarking on a journey. When you arrive at the airport, after
first having reserved your place, you are likely to proceed
smoothly with your journey. On the other hand, if you go to the
airport only at the last minute, without having a reservation, you
may not get on the plane. It all depends on chance. You may end up
having to go by a slower way or you may have to delay your
journey. It is the same way with people who start thinking about
spiritual matters in their old age. They may or may not be able to
advance spiritually in a significant way at that point in their
lives. But if the same individuals had in earnest undertaken
spiritual exercises from an early age, they would be sure to
achieve spiritual success in their old age.
DO NOT WASTE YOUR YOUTH
If you waste your time enjoying the
pleasures of life during your youth, wasting the power of your
body and your sense organs, then if you want to reach your goal of
merging with the Lord in your old age, you may not get that
chance. There is no meaning whatsoever in serving delicious food
to the demons, and then, when they have consumed everything
worthwhile, offering the leftovers to God. Do you think that will
please God? No! After all your powers and capacities have been
dissipated by the demons of anger, greed, lust and pride, you try
to offer God what little is left. But that offering will not be
accepted by him. In this context, the Gita has emphasized that
your youth is a very precious period which has to be used with
great care to advance yourself spiritually.
When you have had something for a
long time and taken it for granted, you may not appreciate its
real value. It is only after losing it that you truly appreciate
it. As long as you have your eyes, you do not know the value and
the preciousness of your eyes. You only realize the importance of
vision when you lose your eyesight. In the same way, when you have
good health and all your faculties are in their full glory, you do
not understand their true value. After having lost your health,
and when your faculties have become impaired, then you repent and
lament that all your capacities and powers are gone. But lamenting
at that point is useless. During youth you have allowed the bad
habits and bad traits to become your great friends and get deeply
rooted within you. You squandered and misused the capacities that
have been given to you, blindly following your sensual desires.
Later, these bad habits and bad traits become your principal
enemies in old age. Most
young people do not use their powers of discrimination properly.
They do not try to sort out who is their true friend and who is
their foe. If you follow only your senses and lower instincts, and
have not developed your intelligence to understand the meaning of
life, then is there any reason for calling you a human being?
Should you not be called a mere animal? Once you understand the
significance of human life and fill yourself with the noble
qualities of a human being, your senses will no longer be able to
confuse you. USE YOUR
BODY FOR THE SAKE OF GOD
These days you are using God for the
sake of the body. You are not using your body to worship God. You
pray to God for good health whenever you are sick, but you are not
using all your physical strength and faculties, when you have
them, to worship God. You imagine that there will be plenty of
time later on to engage in worship, and so you go on wasting your
time. You think that after retirement you can begin to take up the
contemplation of God and do spiritual exercises. Perhaps you feel
that it is better in the meantime to enjoy life and to enjoy the
objects of the world while you are still young. But how can you
start thinking of God when you become old, after having lost all
your capacities. If you are
not using all your physical powers and capacities for the worship
of the Lord now, then later it will be too late. When children
make fun of you and call you 'old monkey!', will you then have the
strength to start an intensive spiritual life? When your hair is
gray, when you are hardly able to move, when you are barely able
to see, when all the sense organs have become weak, will you then
be able to use them for the worship of the Lord? No, it will not
be possible. The scriptures have very forcefully described the
futility of starting your spiritual practices only during your
last days. It is stated that when the god of death finds you and
shouts, "Come! Come!", when your own relations are anxious to get
the corpse out of the house, when they are all shouting, "Take it
away! Take it away!", and when your wife and children are there
sobbing, can you think of the Lord at that time? Can you tell your
relatives to stop crying, can you tell death to wait a little bit
because you want to think of the Lord for a few moments?
You should accumulate in youth all the things which are necessary
to lay a strong foundation for a happy future. Do you really think
that it is possible to think of the Lord only after you retire?
No, it is not possible. You should be fully engaged in regular
spiritual practice before retirement. But instead, you immerse
yourself in business, and continue with that even after
retirement, or waste your time going to clubs, and in many other
ways dissipate your precious life.
YOU CANNOT START SPIRITUAL LIFE WHEN
DEATH IS AT THE DOOR A
housewife once asked her husband, "At least now in your old age
shouldn't you be thinking of God? You never took the time to do it
before, during your busy period. Please, do it now!" The business
man replied, "I have no time even to die, no less to think of
God." But do you think that death will not come to someone who
says that he has no time to die? Will death come only according to
his wishes? No, time waits for no one. Therefore, while you still
have time you have to make use of it in a proper way.
The enemy called death, along with
his soldiers called disease, will be waiting to wage war against
your body. Men die most pitifully and helplessly during such
periods of time when they are attacked by disease and death. But
no army can attack those who have won the grace of the Lord.
Therefore, during youth itself you have to earn the grace of God
and equip yourself to meet all the challenges of your enemies when
they come to lay siege on you. Above all, you must be firmly
convinced in your own heart that this journey of life is going to
be a long one. Any other journey, whether it be by bus, train or
plane lasts for only a short time; you need not make too many
preparations for these. But for this journey of life you must
equip yourself for all the contingencies of a long journey;
otherwise you will be suffering greatly later on when you are
faced with real problems and real troubles.
In the compartment of freight trains
used to transport chemically-active substances, a stamp is placed
at the time of manufacture giving a particular date in the future.
It is the day when that container has used up its normal service
life and must be returned to the depot for recycling. It is the
same for the container that is your body. Here also a return date
has been written on it by God himself.
You do not remember that you have to
go back. People totally forget this all-important truth. If you
really want to enjoy all the pleasures of life at a later stage,
then during youth you have to earn the grace of God. In the course
of human life the early periods of childhood and youth are very
important. Not realizing the great value of this period of your
life, you waste your time during youth. You use a golden cup,
adorned with precious gems and jewels, for a low, mean,
contemptible purpose. To feed the fire of your senses you are
using costly sandalwood as fuel. The vessel is very precious, the
fuel is also precious, but the food you are choosing to cook with
their help, is insipid and worthless. Such a precious body and
such sacred fuel is being squandered away for the sake of enjoying
useless trivial things in life. Things without value are put in
this precious vessel and used for sordid enjoyment. You are using
a golden plough to plough the field of your heart, but you produce
nothing but useless weeds.
TRUE HUMAN LIFE INVOLVES
DISCRIMINATION AND RENUNCIATION
The field of your heart is most
precious and sacred. The divine teacher has declared that even
that field belongs to him. The Lord has declared that he is both
the field and its knower. He is the true owner of your heart and
of your body. He has identified himself with them. What are you
doing with this sacred heart and body? You are using a golden
plough to raise useless crops of sensual pleasures. Any person who
is aware of the preciousness of the heart and the preciousness of
the feelings that are there will not misuse these things. Life
must be used for good, for the welfare of others, for reaching the
sacred goal and for treading the sacred path, and for bringing
about shining effulgence in the heart and mind. You have to use
this life for merging yourself in the divinity. Only then will you
have the authority to say that your life has become sanctified and
genuine. It is said that it
is very difficult and almost impossible to get a human life. What
is so special about human life? Why is it so difficult to get? All
the pleasures which animals and birds enjoy, you can also enjoy.
In that case, what is the meaning in declaring that human life is
so very precious, so very special? It is because you have the
ability to discriminate between right and wrong. It is because you
have the ability to give up attachments and hatred. Therefore, you
have to use the intelligence given to you to make a distinction
between the animal way of life and the human way of life. By not
discriminating between the true self and the lower self, by not
developing your higher intelligence, you become the victim of
agitation and sorrow. You cannot find inner peace because you do
not follow the right path.
With a firm determination, young people need to undertake the
three types of penance, physical, mental and vocal, and thereby
set an example for the world. You have to use the active principle
within you to subdue the slothful principle, and then, you have to
use the serene principle to subdue the active principle. It is
impossible to be serene as long as your heart is filled with the
slothful and active natures. When the head is empty you can hope
to fill it with some good ideas, but if your head is already full
of all sorts of useless thoughts, how is it be possible to fill it
up with any thing sacred and great? You have filled your head with
all sorts of unnecessary worldly stuff. You will have to first
empty all that out. Only then will you be able to fill your head
with sacred feelings and sacred thoughts.
KEEP YOUR CONCENTRATION UNWAVERINGLY
ON GOD Many of you are
following a meaningless path and living a meaningless life. You
cry when you are born and you cry when you die. In between,
through your whole span of life, you go on crying for useless
things. Do you cry when you see the decline of righteousness? That
is what you should cry for, that is what you should use your
strength and abilities for, to correct the decline of
righteousness and to help heal the wounds that follow its decline.
What is right living? It is the constant remembrance and
uninterrupted contemplation of the Lord. It is discharging your
daily duties thinking of the Lord. The Gita has not taught that
you should give up your family that you should give up your wealth
and property, and then go to the forest. No! Take care of your
family. Do your duty. But keep your concentration constantly on
the Lord. Whatever you do, do not forget your goal. If you give it
up, you will get lost and stray onto the wrong path. Your divine
goal must be solidly set in your mind. Keeping your goal in view,
perform your daily duties.
Do not allow any flaw or defect to taint your words. Always adhere
to truth. Some people think that in times of difficulty they can
modify the truth. They may even feel that it is necessary to tell
untruth sometimes. But in difficult situations you can develop
sufficient presence of mind to keep silent, instead of telling
either the truth or an untruth. If you tell the truth, tell it
dearly and sweetly. Do not tell the truth in an unpleasant way, or
tell an untruth in a pleasant way. Whenever there comes a
difficult testing time, you should learn how to avoid compromising
situations without ever telling an untruth. In certain
circumstances you will have to conduct yourself in an extremely
careful way. You should know how to use words without hurting
people. It has been said that, "He is the fortunate one who knows
how to talk without ever hurting anyone." You should neither hurt
others nor be hurt by others. Here is a small story.
BE STEADY IN YOUR PRACTICE
A housewife attended a series of
meetings at which a spiritual teacher was expounding the
scriptures. She was concentrating and listening with great
attention to everything that was being said. One day, the speaker
recounted the story of Rama and Sita, and in that connection
declared that for a wife, the husband was the only goal in life.
He said, "It is the responsibility of the wife to satisfy her
husband and make him happy. Always treat the husband as God." The
housewife after hearing all this went back home. She was so
impressed by this discourse that she resolved to put into practice
immediately all that she had learned. As soon as the husband
returned home for his midday meal, she took a container of water
and poured it over his feet, thinking that she was worshipfully
serving her husband thereby. The husband was confused and
flabbergasted. He entered the house and sat down to dry his feet,
but before he could do so she insisted on doing it for him.
After seeing all this, the husband
went into his office and rang up the doctor. Her husband did not
know that his wife had been attending the discourses. The doctor
came and decided to give her some sleeping pills. He said that it
looked like an attack of hysteria, but after a rest of one or two
days she probably would be all right. The husband ate his meal and
told his wife to go and have some rest; then he went to his
office. His wife went right back again to the meeting to hear the
next lecture. That afternoon the speaker was explaining the
delusory relationship which exists between husband and wife. He
said, "Who is husband? Who is wife? Nothing is permanent. All
these things are just temporary and transient. In truth nothing
exists." Then he added, "God alone is true. He is the only real
truth." The housewife went back home and sat in her shrine room.
That evening the husband came
back from his office half an hour early, thinking that his wife
may not be well and perhaps he could help her in some way. He
knocked on the house door and asked her to kindly open it. From
the shrine room she answered, "There is no mother, there is no
father, there is no house and there is nothing, not even a
husband." He was quite alarmed by this behavior, but somehow he
got her to open the door. When he came into the house he went
straight to the telephone and called the psychiatrist. The
psychiatrist came and examined her in detail. He gave his
diagnosis. He said that after all this listening to these
discourses she had developed some peculiar attitudes; but if she
could be kept at home she would soon get over them. All
arrangements were made to keep her from going to the lectures.
Everyone was informed. The driver as well as every servant of the
house was told not to let her go there.
After these restrictions had been
put on her by doctor's orders, she did not go to the lecture for
two days and she started behaving in a normal way again. So the
detachment she had developed was only temporary and superficial.
It did not last. Now the husband was happy. The normal daily
routine resumed. After a week this lady went again to the place
where the lectures were being given. On that particular day the
speaker was expounding the teachings of the Gita. He explained
that whenever one uses words one should tell the truth and one
should not tell it in a compromising way. She heard this and
returned home. Her husband told her that there was a marriage
reception that day, and asked her to join him. She got ready and
went there with her husband.
The marriage ceremony started. There
was a tradition in those parts which calls for the auspicious
necklace that is worn by the bride to be taken to every elder, who
then touches it and blesses it. The father of the bride came to
this lady, recognized her and asked her, "How is your mother? Is
everything all right?" These questions were a matter of courtesy,
exchanging a few words with her while he held out the sacred
necklace, asking her to touch it and bless it. She answered, "My
mother is doing fine. She is quite all right, but you know, a week
ago my mother-in law died quite suddenly and her body was taken to
the cremation ground the following day."
The neighbor who was sitting next to
her told her, "Why did you have to say such an inauspicious thing
while touching and blessing this necklace, which is meant to
impart a long and happy life to the new bride and her future
family?" The housewife replied, "Should I tell a lie just for the
sake of this necklace? No, I will never tell a lie. It is a fact
that my mother-in-law died last week and that the body was
cremated the next day." One intelligent young lady sitting nearby
told her, "Mother, certainly you should speak the truth, but you
should also be aware of the circumstances and think through what
is appropriate before you say anything."
TELL THE TRUTH BUT USE DISCRETION IN
YOUR WORDS Whenever you
hear a spiritual teaching on a particular day, you will go about
implementing it with a great deal of fervor and conviction; but
only on that very day. But this is not the correct way to pursue
your spiritual studies. You should use your intellect to
understand the context in which you find yourself before you use
words in a given situation. Whenever you do a particular thing or
say something, you should know that truth is the royal means for
reaching your ultimate goal. The tongue should not be tainted by
untruth. The body should not be tainted by violence. The mind
should not be stained by bad thoughts and bad feelings. It is only
when you sanctify all these three, the tongue, the body and the
mind and bring them into harmony, that you will be able to get the
sacred vision of the Lord.
Students should be extremely careful in telling the truth. They
should certainly tell the truth, but be careful not to go on
talking and hurting others unnecessarily. Have control over your
tongue. Whenever there is a misunderstanding with someone, if you
tell him all his defects, with the justification that everything
you are telling is true, then there are bound to be complications
later. You should never hate others. When you have love in your
heart, your words will naturally be very sweet. Even if anger
develops, it will be of a fleeting nature.
There are four types of people. The
anger of a person who is of a serene nature will be very
short-lived; it recedes immediately. The Gita has declared such a
one as a great soul. The second type will have this anger for a
number of minutes, but it will soon fade away. The third category
of person will have this anger continuously, all day long. The one
in the lowest category will have this anger throughout his life.
"Do not think about the world. Do
not spend time thinking about the world or about your
relationships to individuals. They are all impermanent. They will
not last. Pay attention to that which lasts, that which is
permanent. All things involving the world or relationships have to
do only with the body. The body is like a water bubble. The mind
is like a mad monkey. Do not follow either the body or the mind.
Follow the conscience. It is above the mind. It is permanent. It
is the voice of God. The voice of unchanging truth inside?.
There are those who think that the
world exists and that the world is real. There are others who
think that the world does not exist and that the world is not
real. Rare indeed is that blessed one who does not think, but who
is ever calm, abiding in the Absolute.
Source: Sai
Baba Gita,
http://beaskund.helloyou.ws/askbaba/saibabagita/saigita260.htm
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