Raam and kaam

1 February 1970, Inauguration of Central Committee, Mahila Sathsang, Bengaluru

Professor Kasturi's English.

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should practise what they preach About life, the two fundamental questions are: From? To? And, for both, you have not discovered the answer, though you have grown to be pretty quick in asking a thousand other irrelevant questions! I am sure this Sathsang (good company) will gradually shed light for you on these two problems. Now, a word about this Sathsang. Let the Sathsang start with your homes. Let the home be harmonious, happy, smooth running, with no friction or faction. Let the various individuals comprising the home, the different generations and levels of intelligence, growth and attainments living together, let all learn to live together, with understanding and sympathy, fortitude and forbearance, in mutual co-operation and loving kindness. Let peace reign in your homes, between the mother and her children, the brothers and sisters, the kith and kin.

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Women should develop forbearance Your Sathsang has to grow, through mutual adjustment of temperaments. It is possible to have an organisation with hundreds of gents as members or workers. They know how to work together as a team. But, women are proverbially too individualistic! There is a popular belief, born out of folk-experience, that three women cannot live in unison! There is a Thelugu limerick, which says, "The world shivers before one woman. The Ocean will dry up, if there are two! And, if they are three, O, the stars will drop down at noon!" Why is woman so characterised? Woman is extremely deficient in by , I mean, ability to bear defeat, fortitude, forbearance, patience, quiet suffering with no thought of retaliation. That is why woman is said to be of the weaker sex. This is a pointer to the need for women developing their forbearance. You must try to put up with difference of opinion and variety of temperaments, develop understanding and sympathy. That will strengthen . Among the members of this Sathsang, there are some who have long experience in running organisations and institutions with efficiency. But this is the basic institution! You should never forget the fundamental of (divine devotional) culture. Let children imbibe these, while on your laps. Do not hand them over to (nurse maids), who do not know the culture or even care for it. Let them learn the lessons of the , through nursery rhymes; let them not cram lines like Ba! Ba! Black Sheep!, and become black sheep, themselves!

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Keep in the heart with task in the hand Cultivate the spirit of service and engage in some programmes of service in the slum areas of this City, and in the jails and hospitals. Have compassion towards the prisoners; that is the best method of rehabilitating them. Let them grow in faith, faith in the goodness of mankind. Then they will not engage themselves in anti-social activities. The child is not disgusted with dirt, its own urine and faeces. But, while growing up, the disgust is developed and stays. So too, the criminal will outgrow his callousness and learn to be disgusted with his own behaviour. The patients in hospitals who have no one to speak a kind, reassuring word to them, will be tearful with gratitude if you carry the light of compassion to their bedsides. Write letters for them, if they desire to communicate with those near and dear to them; tell them stories; give them good books to read; give them fruits and flowers. Brighten their surroundings a bit, shower smiles over them. That will itself be a valuable drug which will hasten recovery. Social service should not become show-cial work(!) carried out for publicity or with the camera in view. Nor should it become slow-cial(!) work. Why go slow, when you are doing good to the deserving? Do as much as you can, as quickly as you can. If you cannot do any good, at least desist from doing harm; or from finding fault with those who serve you. Know that is a better form of (spiritual effort) than even ; how can God appreciate the (meditation) you do, when adjacent to you, you have some one in agony, whom you do not treat kindly, for whom you do not make all efforts to help? Do not keep yourself apart, intent on your own salvation, through or . Move among your sisters, looking for opportunities to help; but, have the Name of God on the tongue and the Form of God before the eye of the mind. That is the highest . '! !'- - in the heart! Task in hand! Proceed in that spirit. God's Grace will be showered on you, in full measure.