Wednesday, May 6, 2020

Sri Brahmachaithanya Pravachan-May.6.


Restraining Selfishness Augments Mutual Love
Doing certain things is indispensable for augmenting mutual love. One has to connive at minor matters and to be accommodating to one another's idiosyncracies; this will eliminate the possibility of mutual dislike or animosity. Next, there should be overruling regard for someone venerable to all, whereby one overlooks minor irritation by others. Thirdly, suggestions should not be direct and personal, nor offensive in content or manner, and should be couched in sweet and winning language. Fourthly, and this is of paramount importance and partly includes all the foregoing, selfishness should be absolutely subordinated, eliminated. In other words, one should feel that one lives more for others than for one's own self. To conduct oneself on these lines makes a substantial contribution to increasing mutual love. One who lives thus, with an unselfish heart, may never feel want in his life, because God is bound to make up genuine needs and deficiencies where selflessness motivates a person.
Talking of selfishness, most people will refuse to concede that they are selfish at all; they will plead, also, the exigencies of practical life. But this does not prove the point. Selfishness, like self-pride, is subtle and compelling. Its ramifications are deep and imperceptible.
Selfishness may pertain to three different fields - the body, speech, and the mind. To behave with care to see that the body does not have to exert or suffer for others, is one kind. To expect others to agree to what I say, or not to take offence whatever I say, is another kind. To expect everyone never to dispute what I say, and to accept my view as the correct one, is the third kind of selfishness.
Now, if we base our thought on the concept that I am even more for others than for myself, we shall have to concede that we should accept the policy 'do as you would be done by', and should allow more latitude to others than to ourselves. This, indeed, is the essence of good behaviour, the essence of true duty. We cannot have or expect love from the world unless we give ours to it whole-heartedly. Only he can be said to live for God who lives for others. One who bestows his love on others freely, selflessly, earns true bliss, lasting and unalloyed.
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Shri Maharaja's Pravachan in Marathi _MAY 6


Sri Maharaja's Pravachan in Kannada - May 6


Tuesday, May 5, 2020

Sri Brahmachaithanya Pravachan-May 5.


Do Your Duty without Pride of Doership
The first step in the process of learning anything, whether in the material field or spiritual, is the assumption of ignorance. We go about, however, with a vainglorious pride that we know everything. In spirituality, there is no greater enemy than such pride. To say that it is like the pernicious weed to a field would be underrating its evil efficacy; for, the weed makes itself apparent and can be uprooted, whereas this pride is subtle, unnoticed, and usually unadmitted by a person. There is no telling when it will crop up and make itself felt. It is the main obstruction to purification of the heart. Nothing would be sillier, and more doomed to failure, than to imagine that one could surmount it with one's own prowess. The only way to overcome it is to go into utter unquestioning surrender to the sadguru, and constantly to pray him to deliver you from its clutches.
A heart thoroughly purged of doubt and desire is like a pit which is filled with good soil and proper manure for planting a tree. The next step is to sow a seed of best quality and perfect purity. Even with all such care, it may happen that the final product is not up to the mark, and the hopes entertained at the beginning are belied. It may happen, besides, that after a certain age, the tree becomes unproductive, or gets a rot of one kind or another. Altogether, a time comes when it ceases to give the pleasure expected in the beginning, and actually proves a nuisance. It would have been better to select a seed which would grow into a tree yielding pleasant fruit for endless time.
Now, does our experience show anything which provides uncloying, unperishing pleasure? The answer must inevitably be in the negative. We are driven to conclude that anything done for a perishable objective is predestined to failure in ultimate fulfillment. Consequently, we realize that the only way to everlasting pleasure and bliss is to do one's duty with no sensate object in view.
We should fervently pray God to ask of Him the gift of devotion without any objective but Himself, and our effort should be directed to that end. We use the sifting fan to blow away the rotten grain and retain only the pure; similarly we should practise to discard all desire but that for God, and resort to devotion with no object but Him.
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Shri Maharaja"s PRAVACHAN IN KANNADA -MAY 5


Sri Maharaj's Pravachan in Marathi May5

Shri Maharaj's Pravachan in Kannada-May 5