Passage 7

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In plain words

Your parents will never forget you. You too must never forget your parents. That is why I came straight here from Brindavan. At first people thought I would go on to Kodaikanal. But, “By 6 May I must be here. I must come and hold the function well. I must give clothes to the poor, feed them till they are full and make them happy,” I decided. Wherever I go, this is what I do. We must not push the poor away, looking down on them as ‘only the poor’. We must keep them in mind and not forget them. But some people keep reviling them and criticising them. That is a great wrong. That criticism comes back afterwards to the very ones who made it. They think they are criticising the poor, but in truth they are criticising themselves. So we must love the poor. We must keep giving them the help they need. We must not criticise them or dishonour them. If you dishonour them in front of others, in time to come others will dishonour you.

No one can escape reaping the karma he himself has done, brother; who can say on what day, or in what way? The reaping is certain, brother! Long ago the Pāṇḍavas lived on leaves and roots and were cast out into the forest, brother; even one as great as Rāma, parted from his lovely Sītā, wept like a common man, brother!

How mighty the Pāṇḍavas were! What strength and ability they had! Even they had to live on leaves and roots in the forest. Why? They lost at dice. Gambling is never good. All who go down this evil road meet the same fate. In the same way, drinking too is not good. One who drinks talks all kinds of things. When he comes back to his right mind he is sorry: “Alas, I spoke like that!” Anger and lust: these two are the marks of a demon. So we must not let them come anywhere near us. When anger comes we blurt out all sorts of things without a thought for what came before or what comes after. Afterwards we are sorry: ‘Alas, I abused them like that!’