Passage 4

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In plain words

You never say so and grow weary of it. Every time, that coffee gives you fresh stimulation and cheer. If that coffee is two minutes late, you get a headache. Though you drink the coffee or tea you like every day, not once but four times, eight times, still you do not tire of it. But sadly, only in spiritual matters do we grow weary of hearing the things we have heard, the things we have experienced, the ideals. When we enter a spiritual talk, sleep comes on. Or a headache begins. If neither, people at least bring trivial things to mind. For such unfortunate people, however many spiritual teachings they hear, there is no benefit. Even things we have heard we must chew over once more and keep in memory again; that is essential, and that is precisely why we must hear again what we have heard. In matters of Bhakti, we must experience it with a blissful, divine feeling, with no weariness and no break at all. Not even for a single moment should we grow weary of it. Even the cakora birds, circling and circling to the moonlight, may come to feel some weariness. Even the song of the cuckoo, sung on and on, may grow wearisome. Even amṛta, drunk on and on, may become wearisome. But in the things of God there must be no weariness at all. This is the very principle of true Bhakti. Its sign. Such holy, divine feelings must spread within the hearts of students.

The reason is that in students the mastery of the senses is very low. Students do not understand what self-restraint means. The students think that roaming about as they please is their main aim. We must understand that too: what freedom means. To wander as one likes, to live as one likes, to behave as one likes: this they think is freedom. Beasts, birds and animals enjoy that kind of free roaming and all the rest, don't they! Nobody lays down any rule for dogs and monkeys. They wander about as they please. What is special in our life? One who is a human being, one who is educated, one who is a student, has to recognise only one thing. What does the word svecchā mean? Sva plus icchā: svecchā. Sva means the Ātma. To follow the feeling of the Ātma: that is svecchā. To follow the feeling of the body is not svecchā. Keeping the body under control, everything that rises from the mind: “Is it right or wrong. Is it good or bad”: to weigh it so, using the discrimination power, and have one's own Ātma satisfied, that alone is true svecchā. That is self confidence. This is the kind of faith that must come. Only when this faith is there can we recognise what sva means. Conscience belongs to the principle of the Ātma.

Students!