All World
Gayatri Pariwar

     My conclusion from personal experience is that there is more loss than gain in the pursuit of a greedy and lustful life. What I had to lose is inconsequential but what has been gained is so rich and great that I wish to request everyone to adopt ideal and sublime tradition of living a life of spiritual pursuit.

When I began to feel myself as an immortal soul – a spark of The Divine - and my conscience to be the sacred seat of God, orientation of the mind became inward. My only concern was to keep the flame of the soul ever alight and effulgent and to be guided by its light. The path was clear and sunlit.  Live only a sublime life and adopt idealistic methods of work. Those who are not familiar with this path are scared that this way of life entails a lot of problems and difficulties and that poverty, want, abuse and hazards will have to be faced. Friends will turn foes, and relatives will oppose. It happened in my case too in the beginning. At the beginning I also had to endure ridicule and reproach. It is the people at home and close relatives who opposed most vehemently. They felt that they would lose the benefit which they expected to get through me. So they declared me foolish on account of their possible loss. But it did not last long.

Goodness by itself is wealth that takes its own care and remains steady under all circumstances. Opponents and accusers realize their mistake after a little while and offer co-operation instead of placing hurdles in the way. The higher the faith and firmness, the sooner do hatred and misunderstandings disappear. Opposition at home did not last long. As soon as they realized the truth, their apprehensions and misgivings were removed. In fact there is no loss in spiritual ‘commerce’. Though externally appearing poor, such a person remains happy due to inner peace and contentment. This happiness and contentment influence others and prove helpful in converting opponents into collaborators. My problems too were solved in this way.

When the chain of lust, desire and greed for high position, pelf, power, fame and applause was broken, I felt a sense of liberation from worldly bondages. The persons who are fastened by these chains are dragged along the miserable and rough path of mundane existence and keep bemoaning their perpetual state of discontent and distress. Once the futility and insubstantial nature of these three bonds are realized and the attitude of getting and grabbing is converted into one of sharing and caring, one may be assured of attaining salvation while living in the mortal state itself. As goes the saying, “As you believe so you see”; with the dawn of the self-knowledge, the darkness of misconceptions vanishes. After such a concrete experience of my identity, neither want nor discontent remained.

After fixing up the minimum requirement for sustenance of the body and maintenance of the family, arrangements were made to meet these requirements. When the roots of greed and lust were pulled out of the psyche, immense amount of energy and enthusiasm filled the heart. Anyone can test and experience it on oneself. But people want to extinguish fire with oil. People want to satisfy greed with wealth and satiate lust with sensual enjoyment. Who will make them realize that these efforts will only ignite the wild fire more fiercely? Those who tread such a path will be wandering in wilderness. Like the evil spirits and devils of the graveyard, they will remain restless and disgruntled and can do only evil things. How can anyone teach them?

Majority of the so-called seekers and teachers now-a-days are both making the mockery of spiritual sadhana. I have attended several Satsangs and discourses, but did not find any one who had dived deep into spirituality and who could inspire others into it. When the discoursers' doings were delved into, the dirt and rubbish in them were found to be much more than in those whom they were addressing. So I was disgusted. Great discourses and communions were taking place, but I found none of them interesting and capable of delivering the desired results. When enlightenment occurred it was from the Self within. Only when I valiantly snapped the bondages, mustering the courage from within the soul, did the aim get fulfilled. Had I waited for and relied upon others to do it for me I too might have become hoax, pretending to possess knowledge. I now feel convinced that if any one gets enlightenment, it happens only from within. In my case this is the proven fact. If one wants to tread the path of spirituality, the huge mountains of obstacles cannot be crossed over and one cannot reach the top, without an unshakable faith, indomitable courage and a highly charged spirit of adventure. The courage worked in my case too. When I stood firm, help also came by. From Gurudev to God everyone came forward to help me at every step of the path. Slowly but firmly I marched forward. This is how things have got on so far.

People say that spiritual life is difficult. But my experience is to the contrary. In fact life fraught with greed and lust is very difficult and complicated. Compared to the amount of efforts being made, worries being carried, pain being endured and the complications being put up with by people of lustful and greedy nature, the inconveniences in spiritual life can be considered insignificant. So much labour, so much thinking and planning, so much worry; and yet not a moment's peace! Before the efforts to fulfill the earlier need are completed, scores of further needs crop up due to which man remains unsatisfied and discontented. Though it is difficult to fulfill even small needs, he takes upon himself the responsibility to meet larger and larger needs which call for ten times harder work. Along with accelerated speed, more problems arise and create complications. Mind and soul get tired in trying to find solutions to these problems. Ordinary physical and mental efforts cannot meet the requirements that go on widening their jaws endlessly. So, immoral and undesirable means are required to be resorted to. Despite carrying on with flagrant sinful activities, the desires do not get fulfilled. Considering the damage caused by the constant anxiety and the dark future, the attainments can be said to be insignificant. In general, people, instead of living the life, carry it like a corpse - weeping, lamenting, cursing and complaining. In fact these people should be called ‘saints’. Had they taken as much trouble, endured as many hardships, gone through as much worries and anxieties and suffered as much for the sake of spiritual progress, these very people would have risen to the state of a Yogi, a  Siddha Purush (enlightened soul), a Mahamanav (great man) and Devata. In fact, real renunciates, self-sacrificers and martyrs are these folks who did all sort of adventures and misadventures for acquisition of worldly pelf and possessions and then distributing all the gains among the offsprings, and relatives, and remaining empty handed in the end. To my mind these people who suffer so much for the sake of others are great men and philanthropists in the real sense, even though they consider themselves to be greedy, fallen and degraded!

When I look at the internal and external life system of innumerable people and the repercussions and results of their life style, I feel that I lived a far more happy and comfortable life than they did. The worst disadvantage, if at all, has been that I lived with less wealth and luxury; I commanded less respect and was looked upon as a poor man. Being not wealthy, the world considered me to be a small fellow and had little regard for me. But these so called shortcomings did not affect me any way. While others were eating spicy foods, I lived on barley and gram. The pleasure of taste leads people to sufferings, pain and agony. My cheap food was easily digested and kept me healthy. What did I lose? Instead of catering to the fleeting pleasure of taste buds, I stuck to the theory that hunger is the best spice and proved its veracity. As for the enjoyment of taste my coarse bread was more delicious than that of the luxurious people. People in the pursuit of wealth, in order to cater to their ego, endeavoured to impress others by show of costly clothes, beautiful mansions and catchy decorations. Though I could not put up any matching show with my limited resources, the happiness and contentment I enjoy are not any less. Albeit, silly hollow-minded people may have thought it childish and ridiculous, people of eminence who possessed the ability to perceive the substance and penetrate below the surface commended the greatness concealed behind the simple looking exterior and bowed in reverence. On subjecting myself to severe tests, it can be confidently said that I have physically and mentally been not only more happy despite less labour, less risk and less responsibility but the respect showered on me has also been of a nobler measure. I do not least mind in not being respected or appreciated by the deluded ones.

I have no regrets or sense of remorse for shunning the worldly ways. Right from the Soul to the Supreme Soul and from gentlemen to prophets everyone appreciated the plan and mode of my working. Less risk, and yet more profit! For carrying the load of expensive, greedy, luxurious and pompous life, one needs a cart with the wheels of sin and downfall. In my case the luggage was so light that I could carry it myself and walk on without fatigue or worry. My own experience is that the ideal life is simple. There may be apprehension of getting harmed by evil people. But there is a far greater fear in the lives of those who live sinful and detestable lives. Materialistic people have to face greater risk of competition, jealousy, revenge etc. These days we hear daily of killings, loot, accidents, and such horrible news. In these incidents the victims are mostly those whose orientation is materialistic. Had such people voluntarily come forward to sacrifice their lives and to part with their wealth for noble causes they would have become great saints indeed. Saints like Jesus, Socrates, Gandhi and others of that orientation had made the supreme sacrifices to uphold righteousness. The number of unethical and immoral people who are murdered is thousand times more. People like Bhama Shah, who donated all the wealth for the noble cause are very few; but rich people who become paupers due to fraud, loot, burglary, litigation, illness etc. can be counted in lakhs these days. The danger of loot and attack is less in spiritual field, but many times more in materialistic field.

If this truth were realized, people might not have been scared to adopt ideal life and would not have committed the folly of plunging into the vortex of materialistic lust and greed. My conclusion from personal experience is that there is more loss than gain in the pursuit of greedy and lustful life. What I had to lose is inconsequential but what is gained is so rich and great that I wish to appeal to everyone to adopt ideal and sublime tradition of living a spiritual way of life. But it is not easy. Citing my own personal experience, I have long been appealing to people at the top of my voice to adopt the noble way of life; but how many have cared to listen to me and among those who listened, how many have cared to practice it?