Passage 8

Tap any word for its meaning.

In plain words

Once you take on the Ahaṅkāra and mamakāra that say ‘I’ and ‘mine’, you will be burnt to ashes in every way. You keep saying, ‘Mine, mine.’ What is yours? You say, ‘my body’, ‘my Manas’, ‘my Buddhi’, ‘my citta’, ‘my senses’, but in truth none of these is yours. The body you think of as ‘mine’ will leave you at any moment, without your even knowing. The mind you think of as ‘mine’ is not under your control; it wanders here and there like a mad monkey. Can you catch hold of it? So let it go altogether. You must not in the least identify yourself as ‘I am that’ or ‘I am this’. To the question, ‘Who are you?’, ‘I am I’ alone is the right answer. This is the very Satya that Rāma taught!

If we do good, evil cannot come

Rāma did not hurt anyone in any way. He never once reviled anyone; He harmed no one. So why would others feel hatred towards Rāma?! The good Rāma did comes back to Rāma alone; how could evil come to Him?! If we do good, evil can never come to us; troubles and losses can never come. If sufferings befall us, the cause is only the shortfall in our own effort and the faults of the senses; they are never sufferings that God inflicts. If we control the senses, everything comes under our control. That itself is the essence of the message Rāma handed down. If we go on telling the Rāmāyaṇa as the story of some one individual, our sorrow will not be removed. It is simply the story of us all! Only because our feelings change do we lay the blame on God. God has no hatred towards anyone. Seeing everyone, He goes on scattering smiles. The smile is the natural disposition of God. Where a smile is, hatred can never come. No one can hurt such people. So always keep a smiling face. You should not go about with a ‘castor oil face’ at all times. When examinations come, you should not fret, ‘Alas, how will I write them!’