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I would like you to understand very well that you should have a liberal mind, a beautiful mind, and not a stingy mind.

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. I want to reveal to you a way you can get rid of most of your agitations and sufferings.

Suppose I suffer a situation for ten or fifteen years. After fifteen years of suffering, if the situation is remedied, I will have no lack or complaint. I will not think: “Oh, fifteen years I suffered! Fifteen years I suffered!” Are the past fifteen years more important or the present comfortable situation?

I think it is a notorious habit of our mind to refer to the past and create a dark cocoon around us. You might have starved for several days in your young age. If you had a good meal thereafter, maybe that day was a festival for you. Suppose you continued to get a good meal for one month or two months, would it not more than obliterate the effects of years of starvation you had? Or you will go on suffering thinking: “Oh, I did not have anything to eat! I suffered so much!”

I wonder, some of you – if not many of you – have the notorious habit of suffering unnecessarily. If I am eating satisfactorily for more than one month, will not this one month act upon my mind more than the past twelve years of starvation? What do you say about it? Do you agree or disagree?

There are husbands and wives who will speak about their partner: “Oh, she/he was always troubling me. How much she/he has neglected me after marriage!” Well, he might have troubled you or she had been non-cooperating; but that is an old story. How are you now? You know, according to legends we have had thousands and thousands of births. All these births you were ignorant and in one birth you are going to become illumined. The illumination should delight you or the long story of ignorance torment you?

Then there is another notorious habit. You never appreciate or even sanction the goodness of others. When goodness is pointed out, you will say, “But Swamiji, this defect is also there.”

The trouble is that you lose your joy. You have to understand the defects of others just for the sake of knowledge and your safeguard but it should not rob you of your happiness. Neither should it decry the good qualities of another. But, invariably what happens is, when I say that somebody is good, many devotees will say, “No, Swamiji it is not so, it is this way.” Well, let it be! They even charge me, “Swamiji, you are not aware of the defects of others!” The defect is only information and you can take some safeguards, but that does not mean that you should lose your joy of appreciating others’ qualities.

This is what has been pointed out in the Daakshaayani story in Srimad Bhagavatam. Daakshaayani was speaking to her father Daksha, referring to Shiva, her husband. “You know, my husband is great and honourable. Even a small virtue in another, he magnifies manifold and enjoys it. My dear father, you belong to the accursed category of people who will not even see virtues in others. Many great qualities of a person will not appeal to you but even half an evil you will vociferously magnify”.

The daughter tells the father, do you understand? Finally, she says, “Father, I don’t want to be named after you. If I go back and Shiva calls me Daakshaayani, it will remind me that I am the daughter of Daksha. I will not be able to tolerate it. I don’t want to be associated with my father. So, I am going to immolate myself!”

What do you say? Can a father wrongly blame the husband of his daughter? Will the daughter tolerate it? This man did not understand. When he was blaming the son-in- law, every arrow that he was discharging was hitting the heart of the daughter. So, ultimately Daakshaayani immolated herself because of the disrespect shown to her husband.

I would like you to understand very well that you should have a liberal mind, a beautiful mind, and not a stingy mind. You should not think: “What is the point in your speaking sweet words today because you have always been blaming me!” Do not say that a good word spoken today has no value because one had been speaking bad words all along. You know, it is called poverty of mind.

I don’t know, D, whether it is possible to change this psychology in oneself. Is it possible? To me it appears, when a point is given in an enlightening manner, one should catch it like a spark of fire catching a heap of straw. Immediately you should catch it.

You should be thoughtful, thoughtful, thoughtful. Once you have become an adult, you cannot afford to be thoughtless, even for a moment. You are eating only to be thoughtful; you are sleeping only to be thoughtful; you are working only to be thoughtful – not for any other purpose. That means you must have noble and elevating thoughts, you must have noble and elevating feelings, you must be expansive. Do you understand what I say? Are you belonging to the category of Daksha? I think you have that habit. You always look for defects.

Another point I wanted to mention today is about friendship. Friendship is always meant to improve each other, help and benefit each other. The purpose of friendship is served when the friends interact closely and some of the so-called defects or imperfections are pointed out. Then only they will improve. There also, I don’t know why when some defects or insufficiencies are pointed out, people improve, if at all, cryingly. Can they not improve smilingly? After all, when some defects have come to light should you not be happy and try to set them right? Ok, think about it.

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.

– From Vicharasethu Jan 2005