Ravana's Proficiency In The Vedas Was Of No Avail Because Of His Bad Practices

May 1977, Summer Course 1977, Brindavan

Published English.

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The ancient traditions of have always been recognising and proclaiming the greatness of these three qualities in an individual. Not only does the individual’s importance get established through these three qualities, but even the country’s reputation will become known through the individual citizens who possess these three qualities. When we want the country to become great and the greatness of the country to be known and recognised outside the country, it is necessary that the rulers of the country also possess these three qualities.

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It is true that today Westerners have made considerable progress in science and are acquiring mastery over the material world. In spite of all that, they are not able to give any reply to the challenges posed by the sacred texts like the . Because we have such total belief in worldly experience and things that are based on such experience, we are unable to know ourselves. Every individual thinks that he has achieved some great things, and such achievements are used for the purpose of proclaiming his own greatness and enhancing his own reputation. Truly, without using our strength and our intelligence in the right path, we want to use them for the purpose of selfishly proclaiming our own greatness. We should undertake to promote the total good, the good of the community in a selfless manner with love and .

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Today, people who are giving support to various things which science produces are themselves confused whether all those things are for the good of the people or whether they are going to cause hurt and harm to them. It is only when one has complete control over one’s own mind and one’s own intelligence and when one believes in the truth that divinity is present in every human being can this scientific knowledge be of some use to him. One may possess considerable amount of strength in the material sense of the word, but if he does not have the adhyatmic or the spiritual power, there is every chance of losing all that he has. did possess a considerable amount of worldly power and even moral power, and was a devotee of God. Yet, he fell to the lowest depths because of some of his bad qualities like jealousy and anger.

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It is a sacred quality for one to be able to enjoy and appreciate the good in other people. Even greater than this is the quality by which we get rid of selfishness and spend all our resources for the purpose of doing good to others. Truly, people like , and had many great qualities and considerable amount of courage. But there was something lacking in the type of devotion and faith they had. So they suffered.

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Whatever learning and education one may acquire, it is only when one can recognise that all learning is to enable us to earn the grace of God that our education becomes useful. What is the use of learning several branches of knowledge? Is it possible for any one to change the destiny which has been given to him? When bad ideas fill your head, your thoughts and your intelligence will become blunt. Because had the three bad qualities of jealousy, anger and ego filling his head, he was deprived of all chances of success, although he had several powers. For one who is suffering from ego, the power to discriminate between what is transient and what is permanent will be missing. One who develops jealousy will lose kindness and the ability to give freely. One who develops anger will lose all opportunity for reaching the heights of glory, and his own possessions will disappear. His reputation and his strength will disappear at the moment when they are most needed. Those who are near to him will become distant from him. For one who develops pride, everything will become bad. Those who suffer from anger cannot achieve any result. They will also feel ashamed at the crucial time.

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was ruling over a kingdom and his capital city would compare well with heaven. But because of his bad qualities, he lost his own happiness, his kingdom, and everything that he had. In fact, he destroyed his own dynasty and family. He knew all the codes of conduct of a king, and he knew everything, and yet he was behaving like a monkey. He knew several things but because he was not putting his knowledge into practice, he became worse than one who has no knowledge at all.

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When entered , as ’s ambassador, and spoke to , came to know of this and he ordered that be punished. This is quite contrary to the accepted code of conduct of a king. To kill an ambassador or to punish one who has come as a messenger on behalf of someone else is not the right code of conduct for a king of the country. tried to explain to this principle by which he should not punish one who has brought a message and tried to get released. , in fact, had so many other bad qualities and bad ideas in him, and he often undertook to do things which he should not have done. Many times, he made attempts to kill even . , the wife of , tried to teach that to kill a woman is very wrong, and that he was committing a great sin. The bad qualities that were in him made him take always the wrong path and subjected him to many difficulties. On one occasion went to her husband and asked him, “You know all the , and all the codes of right conduct. With all your wisdom, why is it that you are doing wrong things? What is the matter? How can you explain? What is the inner meaning of your behaviour? Not only this, you have all the capacity and you have all the strength to assume any form that you like. On the day when you brought to , you were in the form of a and you deceived her. Why are you taking all this trouble in order to win over the sacred ? If only you as sume the form of , then would be yours. Why did you not adopt that path?” Then replied that ’s form was a sacred and divine one. If he really took that form, how will he have bad qualities at all? This means knew very well that the qualities which one will have should be appropriate to his form. Because he had the form of a , the qualities of a were showing up. Today, people have a human form. They appear like human beings but behave like . There is some contradiction in this situation. Since we have taken the human form, sacred qualities which are appropriate to a human being should thrive within us. In words we may say that we are human beings, that we are devotees, that God in the form of is present in us, but to put these statements into practice has become very rare. The first thing we should do in this context is to correct our practice. Through our efforts, we can achieve any great thing. The kind of conduct which we accept and go through in our daily life will only be reflected by our life.

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knew all , but without putting them into practice what is the use of having known them simply through the texts? All , which is not put into practice, is just as bad as , so also all knowledge which is not put into practice is as bad as ignorance. Today, many young people know what good work is, and they have to make an effort and participate in it. They do not make any effort. The first thing we should do is to put into practice the good things which we believe are good. By simply believing that something is good, by having faith in being good and yet not putting into practice, how can one get any result in that manner.

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had expertise in all the branches of learning. He also knew very thoroughly the four . He was fully aware of the contents of the six . His knowledge of the six and his knowledge of the four (together ten) is the inner meaning of the belief that had ten heads. It is a symbolic way of saying that he was an expert in all the ten branches of knowledge. Ignoring this inner meaning, if we simply keep on saying that had ten heads, in ordinary daily parlance, we have to ask how he is going to sleep with those ten heads? How is he going to do his daily duties with those ten heads? This is the shortcut to making things appear ridiculous. The writers and the historians may simply have described him as a person having ten heads, but the inner meaning of such a description is that was having such knowledge and deep wisdom. He, with all this strength and knowledge, was not minding the people’s security and people’s happiness. To him, his own enjoyment, his own safety, his own pleasure were all that mattered. We should note here that, in spite of all great and good qualities, he was behaving in a bad manner. Towards the end of his life, he realised that all that he did was sin; and the paths he had adopted were bad paths, and that whatever had told him was right, and that he could not follow the advice given to him by his wife .

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During the last fifteen days, you have been listening to all the good things that are contained in the individual characters of the story of the . We should believe that signifies the divinity that is established within our own hearts. We should think that our own minds symbolise . Our intelligence and our should be identified with . The bad qualities which lead us to commit sin should be identified with . Anger, jealousy and hatred, are the qualities from which sin starts. They constitute the birthplace for sins. We should make an attempt, by using , , and to destroy the in us exemplified by the bad qualities.

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When we give room to jealousy, anger and ego, we become a . When we follow the path of truth and the path of , we become a . Good and bad are results only of the way we conduct ourselves. and are not separate people. They are in us and they make us look like one or the other according to our deeds. It is in this context that it has been said that both for good and for bad, our own mind is responsible. If we conduct ourselves badly, we will be like animals. If our conduct is good, we will be like a divine being. Young people should therefore, guide their conduct and daily behaviour along the right path.

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You are the future citizens of . Whether it is a worthwhile example that you are seeking for your everyday life or whether it is an ideal that you are searching for in your heart and mind, if only you can introduce an amount of sacredness, then we can say that you are seeking . It is not a great thing to acquire good qualities, but real greatness lies in keeping and preserving the great, good qualities you acquire. Making a conscious effort in acquiring what you should acquire, namely good ideals and good thoughts, has been referred to as and then a conscious effort to retain and use what you have acquired is called . This is . But today, we attach too much importance to our body. This body which is transient, which is uncertain, which is going to fall down one day or other, looms large in our view and we think that the good of such a body is . You may protect it as long as you like but when the time comes, this is going to drop down and die. It is better to live for three years or even for three days as a good person, rather than live a hundred years as a bad person. Do not be a crow and go about living for a long time. Be a swan and live for a short time.

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You must acquire good and sathwik qualities. You must also control and regulate the type of food you eat. The bad qualities and the bad nature which had can be traced to a large extent to the kind of food he ate. It is in the context of the food that one eats, that one’s own conduct and daily life are deter-mined. We should make an attempt to take in sathwik food only. What is sathwik food? Do fruit and milk constitute sathwik food? No, if you drink too much milk or too much curd, or eat too much fruit, will increase and they cannot be described as sathwik.

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You should eat only a limited amount of food. That will also be responsible for your good health. Limited amount of food gives us great ease. Unlimited food causes great trouble. In this world, there are many people who are continuously loading and unloading their physical system. They give no thought to enquire into the purpose of their life. belonged to this class of people. Not only this, towards the end of his life, when he was threatening , he told her that he will give her two months time and if in that period she would not change her mind, he would cut her head, cook and eat the flesh out of her head. was one who did not at all understand what food meant. His food consisted of unsacred meat and drink.

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This is the reason why it has been said that if you want to accept the four : , a healthy body is necessary. When you take care to see that what goes inside the body through your five sensory organs is good and sathwik, there is no room for bad ideas in you. If you want to get rid of all bad ideas, you must control your food to a large extent. This is a good lesson which the life story of should teach the people of the world.