Religion and Social Values - 1-4. Swami Krishnananda.

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Thursday, February 18, 2021. 06:47. AM.
Chapter 1: The Circumstances in Which We Have to Live in the World -4.

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Are there not corners in your own room which you hide from visitors because they are not clean? There is a basket where you have thrown torn pieces of paper. There is an old cloth which you have been using for wiping your floor. There is a kitchen which is all pell-mell. You have only a drawing room with a beautiful sofa to receive VVIPs. Such a drawing room we have within our own selves; but the unwanted corners, unfortunately for us, are a majority in their number. The drawing room within ourselves is very small in extent, and very few VVIPs can go inside. But we manage to behave very well with these VIPs, and shake hands with them knowing very well what we have inside our hearts: quarrels, disharmonies, court cases, daily skirmishes and a doubt as to whether it is good to die or live with such peculiar, suspicious surroundings within our own precincts. Nevertheless, we manage to shake hands with people and sit in parlance.

This sad state of affairs cannot go on for a long time. Every dog has his day, and we have our day. But that day cannot be every day. This is the beginning of a right pursuit in the direction of the true values of life. As we know very well, by common sense, that no enterprise can be embarked upon in life without perfect health of the body, the basic prerequisite of any adventure is physical health, first and foremost. Likewise, in your noble pursuits with whose sublime notions you have come to this Sadhana Week, the fulfilment of these purposes requires a basic presupposition and requirement: mental health.

Everyone here is mentally healthy; it is perfectly clear. But the mental health that we are considering and referring to under the circumstances of the nature of the aspiration with which you have come here is something different from the normalcy of the mental operations of man. And if you like to call it so, you may say there is a supernormal condition of mental functions. It is this that can be the means of the fulfilment of your noble aspirations in the field of religion or spirituality, or on the path of God-realisation. An unhealthy mind is like a sick body, which will retard any progress in any direction—because sickness attracts attention immediately, and it will not permit the diverting of the mind in any other way.

The sickness of the mind from a purely philosophical, religious or spiritual point of view is not that particular sickness which is treated in facilities for the psychopathological. This is a different thing altogether, which requires a different set of instruments to gauge the performances of each one’s own mind.

The other difficulty with us is that another person cannot easily help us in this matter, because very few can go into our own mind. Though there are ways and means of studying another’s mind, these are not easy ways. They require deep training and a highly impersonal conduct of the mind to appreciate the exact conditions in which another’s mind operates. But we are the best judge of our own self.

To be continued .....

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