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Amrut
Vani : Speech delivered by HSDH Shri Mahant Swami Maharaj at Chennai.
“My heartiest pranam and Jay Swaminarayan.
I think or I take it for granted that you all are well acquainted with
what I am going to say. There is nothing new. You all know what I am going
to say. But I am here to exchange our thoughts. I am not here to exchange
superstitions or rest assures that’s none of our business.
Very great…Much beyond our imagination. (But still that’s no
excuse)…there is a challenge. We should take up this challenge and
fulfill the mission of our life.
Life, as you know, is a mystery. We
must get to know about its wonders. In life, we must aim high. What I mean
by aiming high is to know about soul. You see, we are wholly
body-conscious. You see, we are doing things, which neglect the soul. To
make things easy to understand, I would say, we are made of three
entities: Mind, Body, and Soul. If it is so then they must share proportionately the importance. In case,
the soul should receive its maximum share, next comes mind and lastly but
not the least, the body. The body’s share should be small, but its
there. It must have its share, but see the state of things today. It’s
the other way round.
Body is a working partner, mind is
the maintenance partner and soul is the financing partner. But it
appears that body is everything. Mind and soul have no place in our lives.
We have lost sight of these two entities.
One class teacher asked the students:
What’s a desert?
Snap came the reply: Where nothing
grows. Again the teacher asked. Give an example. The vigil student said:
My father’s head. See what Samuel Johnson has to say about this
student’s desert. He says. Babies haven’t any hair, so the old man’s
head is as bold. Between the cradle and the grave lie the hair-cut and the
shave. You see, the two extremities are devoted of hair. The hair problem
is only in the midway. That is we are wholly body-conscious. We should be
body-minded but not to the extent, you see, we are over-doing things. We
are loosing our nerves. We are over-driving our nerves. We only see
things, which are visible. We have lost sight of many other important
things, specially mind. Of course, soul is very deeply down but mind is
there. It could be understood you see, you are your Mind. You come here.
First the thought came to you then the body is told to come here. Body is
not independent. It has to obey the mind…it obeys…it obeys very
faithfully. Whatever the mind wishes, the body does. So you see the
importance of mind. That means, you are your mind and not body. The body
is just like a servant. Actually you are your mind.
Now let us see further: YOU ARE NOT EVEN YOUR MIND, YOU ARE SOUL.
Once the soul leaves the body, everything is absolutely useless. Three
things are necessary to make your personality complete: Body, Mind and
Soul. If you don’t have soul. It’s a dead body. If you don’t have
mind: you are crazy or mad. If you don’t have body then you are a ghost!
You see, all three things are required. If anything is missing then there
is a problem, especially mind. You see what happens when you are
absent-minded. Thus mind is very important entity, but nothing is done for
mind. We are totally
body-conscious. All the scientific research works are
done for body…nothing is done for mind. Our 24 hours, you see, as soon
as we rise, right till we sleep, all things we do and all we think is
pertaining to body only. All the three shifts we care only for body. Mind
and soul are starving for our talents, our energies and our time. Only
body is visible and that is why life is superficial. We have lost sight of
mind and soul. I’ll tell you about one doctor whom I know. A doctor
after practicing for 15 years made quite handsome wealth. He had friends,
car, house compounders, nurses, and moreover his body robust and healthy. He enjoyed pink health. He had never suffered physically. But after 15
years he became object of envy. Nasty people started writing letters to
him, threatening him that they will kidnap his children and all that.
Letters after letters. It was too much for the doctor to bear. The doctor
went mad. Everything is there, you see, his wife, children, friends,
nursing home, car, house everything own even his health and wealth both.
There was nothing wrong with his physical body. Everything is as it
is…but only the mind is not there and therefore, now he has become
stranger to his own wife, children, friends and to everyone. He knows
nothing now. All his possessions, acquisitions, position has no meaning at
all. You see, the importance of mind.
I’ll give you few another instances:
In Ahmedabad temple a man comes. He has lost both his legs right from the
root from thighs, that means he has 60% of his body but still when you see
his face, its radiant and glowing. He chants his mala (the beads) and he
his very happy. There is another student who has polio. That means he is
crippled, difficult to walk. But still he comes to the temple, he attends
the divine assembly, the divine sabha.
He enjoys that. Another person, who
is very poor but still he enjoys. In all these cases, you see, they all
have good sound mind. In case of doctor, he has everything except mind
whereas in these three cases you see the state of things, but still as
they have good state of mind, they all are happy. You see, what is mind
now?
Once we went to Paris, and saw a bed, which costs about 30 million
dollars. It is studded with diamonds. We have a bed which costs say about
1000 million rupees. Now suppose a bed costing 1000 rupees gives you 8
hours sleep then a bed costing 30 million dollars, how much sleep will it
give? We just cannot calculate in those terms. Whether the bed costs 30
million dollars or whether you sleep on ground costing nil, we only have 8
hours of sleep. On the contrary a person having such a bed would not
sleep. It is hard for them to get sleep. Some 500 tones of sleeping pills
are being used in America, still people don’t sleep. Even after taking
the pills, you see, it is hard for them to sleep. Here also I read just
now that “What you eat does not cause ulcer, but what is eating you
causes ulcer”. This is the state today. You see, we are living in a
society wherein people are overly body-conscious, why? Because we are
brought up in that way. Right form our childhood to our death we are being
constantly hammered by people, parents, relatives, and neighbors who
advice us that this is your body, this is your house, these are your
parents, this is your uncle etc. You see they go on hammering and make us
body-conscious. In order to feel so, we submit ourselves to tastes and
likes of people who are body-conscious. This is another mistake. Because
of our weakness and because we live very superficially, we submit to
things which are visible to our eyes only. It is said that we urge not
because the truth is not visible, truth is visible at a glance, but we
urge because it is more comfortable.
Wise people are good people they talk
of soul consciousness, they talk of good things, but still because of
body-consciousness we comfortably land there. It is hard to come out. Good
people who know about all these things, but body consciousness is very
comfortable. So we can’t come out of it. Thus we are crippled. The
result is that, we are crippled with frustration, boredom, anxiety, envy,
ego, lust, avarice, and greed. All these things embrace us and we also
feel comfortable in them, in their grips. You see, we like to be
greedy…we like to be lusty, we like to envy but we do not like being
envied. You see, we try to become person of importance and we are envied.
It is well said: “It is nice to be important but it is more important to
be nice”. You can break this sentence in two parts. The first half: it
is nice to be important, it is modernism. The second half: it is more
important to be nice, it is spiritualization. Nothing more than that. We
try to appear nice, we try to appear good. But we have to be nice. There
are two different things. Appearing good won’t do, we must be good, and
that’s the real stuff. That is life. We should make best of our life.
See what George Bernard Shaw has to say: Life is no brief candle. It is a
splendid torch. By that he means we should be hopeful. You see, trials and
tabulations are there but we have to remake ourselves. The kites fly high
against the wind, not with it. So trials and tabulations build us. Saints
and many great persons have undergone them. Abraham Lincoln used to say: I
embrace difficulties. They are gems to me. I cannot do without them. If
you have this type of attitude then what remains. But we turn our face
when difficulties come to us. John Samuel says: Life is solely given to us
for purposes than to gather things, which our ancestors or wise have
thrown away, and to learn to value them and to learn which is of no value.
So what we are doing, we are being body-conscious. By being body-conscious
you see, the soul is down and down in and now it is again being dumped
down by gatherings. We collect and thrash rubbish or mundane things. We
understand that, but we give heavy weightage to these mundane things but
you see, where such things have landed us. What Longfellow says: Life is
real, life is precious and the grave is not its goal. Dust thou art and
dust to eternal but not spoken of the soul. We must aim high. By aiming
high I mean we should be soul conscious but we are body conscious.
This is
the big mistake we are making. Being soul conscious is very hard. It’s
no joke.
But still we can aim high. If you aim high and if you don’t
reach the goal, it’s not a sin. Aiming low is a sin. Loosing battle is
not a sin, loosing courage is a sin. You must fight your way, so long as
we identify our real selves, our soul selves. Till then problems won’t
be solved. You see, what Prince Charles said I read about him this year in
the month of June (92). He addressed several psychiatrists-MIRCPs; they
are equivalent to FRCSs. He told them. Listen carefully what he is saying.
The Prince is saying this who is brought up in Buckingham Palace. He is
born and brought up there. So you see, you can’t expect much from him.
He is saying. I don’t know from where he learnt all this but what he is
saying is important. He says that: The most urgent need for a western mind
(need, urgent need, most urgent need superlative for a western mind). You
see, he is not talking to eastern mind or eastern mind is not talking to
western mind but western mind is talking to western mind and that also a
person of great importance. He says “The most urgent need for a western
mind is to rediscover the divine element in his inner being without which
there can never be hope or meaning to our existence”. “Swami
Vivekanand says” You must remember all works are simply to bring our
power of mind. It is already there. We have to wake up the soul. Every
good person, you see, tries to understand life, talk of soul. Of course,
Prince Charles is talking or he his thinking, whereas Swami Vivekanand had
lived it. There is difference between them but its enough from Prince
Charles. You cannot expect so much from him. But what he has said is
eternal truth. Now he understands that and he is telling it to several
psychiatrists who are concerned for the country and mankind in general. He
is addressing them. He is not talking to ordinary people. He is telling
them: The most urgent need for a western mind is to rediscover the divine
element in his inner being without which there can never be hope or
meaning to our existence. This is our culture. Our philosophy.
So in
short, what I mean to say that we must fling back to our ancestors wisdom.
Stick there nicely, comfortably and fulfill the mission of our life. Our
Guruji Pramukh Swamiji is moving about. He goes from house to house,
village to village, city to city, in India and abroad with this mission.
He is specially warning the youth not to waste life. He not only talks, he
lives. And that is why we are inspired to do something or at least we face
the right direction and we are moving according to his mission and orders.
Our Guruji Yogiji Maharaj visited London in 1970. It was his first and
last visit to London. The journalist of London Times took his interview
because Yogiji Maharaj had turned a church into temple. So he was
interviewed. After the interview, Yogiji Maharaj asked the reporter
jokingly. He said: Tell me something about London. We have not moved
anywhere from this place. When we go back to India people would be waiting
eagerly and will ask us questions.
They would ask us to talk about the
experiences of London. London Times publishes 10 million copies every day.
The journalist of this edition said Swamiji, London is Hurry, Hurry,
Hurry,…Worry, Worry, Worry and Money, Money, Money!!! This is London! On
that reply our Guruji said: Oh, that’s the state everywhere, wherever we
move. In our India also that is gaining momentum in this direction. So
that’s that…This is high time. We have to follow what our Guruji is
teaching us…He is not only talking but he lives such life. That is why
people are inspired. Our Guruji shows this wisdom and we pray to God for
his long life and we may also be inspired by him.
Jai
Swaminarayan."
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