All World
Gayatri Pariwar

O Fire-God Agni!  You are resplendent.  Make this sacrificer (me) prosperous.  Rise for bestowing great fortune.  O Agni!  May your worshippers never perish.  May the singers of your glory be honoured.

The meaning of self-respect is inherent in self-dignity.  It is experienced only by those who are conscious of their virtue-based dignity and never deviate from it.  Those who care a fig for their dignity and readily stoop low for the slightest gain are always deprived of it.  Self-respect is never given by others; it is self-earned.  It is not the name of some civic honour, or columns of praise in newspapers.  It is a very private experience which takes place in our inner consciousness.  The experiencers of this feeling remain happy and contented irrespective of whether or not they are getting worldly laurels.  Those bereft of this feeling always suffer from an undefined emptiness and dissatisfaction within inspite of getting all the worldly honours and praises.

To emerge out of this dissatisfaction, the only way is to re-invent self-dignity and redefine self-respect, because the outer identity, of which people are normally aware, is in no way conducive to the process of jivana sadhana.

Normally, respect for the ego or I-sense is taken to be self-respect.  Even the smallest slight to the ego is deemed a blow to self-respect.  This being so, it is but natural for a 'self-respecting' person to avoid any such activity as will hurt his ego.  This erroneous identification has made the society's elite shun physical labour, because this is supposed to be a domain of the downtrodden and the lowly placed; how can the so-called 'respectable' people do it!

From the overlap of ego and self-respect have sprung many evil practices in the realms of individual and social lives.  Man is so deeply immersed in false sense of ego regarding caste, clan and lineage that he has detached himself from normal human values and behaviour.  In trifling matters his ego gets hurt, and he is bent upon punishing the offender.  Of late, new lows have been reached and even killings are being done in the name of protecting the honour of caste and family.

To reverse this perverse trend, it is necessary to redefine a noble emotion like self-respect.  Self-respect is the ineffaceable line of normative bounds which must not be violated in any condition.  Right conduct and righteous qualities define our self-respect.  Noble sentiments and sublime values of life are its symbols.  Their correct awareness, unshakable faith in them, and full alertness about the inviolability of their norms exemplify our self-respect.  If we act accordingly, we feel honoured in ourselves and experience an exhilarating pride within, while a converse behaviour drags us into the gloom of self-pity and remorse.

There are many events in the life of Yugrishi Poojya Gurudev which make the essential meaning of this truth evident.  The incident being mentioned here is of his Mathura days.  Gayatri Tapobhumi had come into existence.  Gurudev alongwith Vandaniya Mataji regularly participated in the morning yajna.  That day also when he reached for yajna at the appointed time, his eyes fell on dog's excreta lying near the Tapobhumi gate.  The passers-by were making their way around it.

He observed this proceeding silently for a few minutes.  Then without saying anything to anybody he moved towards the gate and before others could react, he had cleaned the excreta and washed the place thoroughly.  After this, he went for bath and having made himself clean and pure again returned to the yajnashala.

Those who were witness to all this felt awkward.  Why did Gurudev have to do this work himself?  He could have told a cleaning staff or some worker.  Such thoughts arose in many minds but none was bold enough to mention this to him.  Gurudev, of course, in his inner vision was aware of these thoughts passing through their minds.  After purñahuti (concluding offering of oblation) he addressed them: "Gayatri Tapobhumi is the holy peeth (seat) of Mother Gayatri.  It is home to all of us.  Its cleanliness is also the duty of us all.  Live we will in it but clean it somebody else - what could be more shameful than this?"

Having said this Gurudev looked at those present and continued: "To clean excreta is a matter of self-respect for me.  Loss in self-respect comes from tolerating filth and looking up to others for its removal".  He warned on this occasion that self-respect increases by inculcation of the attributes required, for self-development.  By neglecting these attributes, we can only become hypocrytic egoists.  The sense of self-respect comes to those who serve the needy, give comfort to others and whose hearts are brimming with noble sentiments.  Ask yourself daily how much you have moved forward in this direction today.  This continued introspection and self-evaluation vis-à-vis inner qualities will lead to the emergence of true self-respect.