Passage 4

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In plain words

In this service to society Ahaṅkāra is rooted out. The feeling of the one Ātma is gained. So he who has taken up such a vow is supremely dear to God.

The fourth is udāsīnatā. That is, there is no need to take account of joy and sorrow, of good and bad, or of fame and standing. You must recognise, with your conscience as witness, whether the karmas you have done are sacred or not. This is a good deed. This is a sacred deed. Once we have believed that this is the right service in society, we need not take account of others in any matter. When man enters into good works, many kinds of obstacles keep coming. Others may even hate. Others may ridicule. We need not take account of any of these. You must stand as witness to your own heart. Enquiring, 'Is the karma I do good or bad?', you must test it by close examination. When your inner voice teaches that it is good, you need not take account of whatever anyone says. When anyone at all, kin or friends or parents, stands in the way of it, pay it no heed at all. Only when you have taken up a vow of this kind, only when this feeling of udāsīna has come, can you achieve in full what you have resolved. If you go on trembling and taking fright at every single task, you cannot win success at all. So you should attend, to some extent, to this kind of udāsīna feeling within. You must keep very far away from politics. When you enter politics, even the heart turns into rajoguṇa. When rajoguṇa arises in it, it strives for honour and respect. It longs to win fame and standing. Through desires like these your Manas becomes soiled. That is why the feeling of udāsīna must keep very far away from the world of worldly things and, with the Prema that belongs to the heart, make a fitting effort to serve all men. In this matter called udāsīna, many kinds of ideas may arise in us. But udāsīnatā does not mean going on without taking account of anything, out of Ahaṅkāra or out of show, out of pride, out of arrogance: that is not udāsīnatā. To go on without giving up the good and without heeding the bad: that alone is true udāsīnatā.