Who doesn’t believe “I am better than others”? Internally everyone believes “I am better than others.”
If we think we are better than others, then we will never acquire saintly virtues.
If anyone, including Lord Brahma or Bhagwan Himself, comes and says, “You are perfect in every sense,” even then we shouldn’t accept that we are perfect.
Even if we are perfect and we don’t have anything to improve on, our mind should always believe that “I still have scope to improve.”
At every moment if we think “I have some limitations in me, and I have scope to improve,” then we will eventually become saintly.
Stages of thinking great about ourselves
What are the stages of thinking great about ourselves?
First stage: “I am good at something.”
Second stage: “I am better than a few people.”
Third stage: “I am better than most people.”
Final stage: “I am the best. There is no one better than me.”
Those are the stages of unsaintliness as well.
On the other hand, the highest stage of saintliness is in believing that there are so many people better than me. When we firmly believe that there are so many people better than us, then we will get all saintly virtues.
Even if we are really the best of all, we shouldn’t believe we are the best.
Every day we should do one round of mala chanting: “Brahmaham Krushna Dasosmi” meaning“I am brahm, and I am a sevak of Bhagwan.”
What do we mean by Das (sevak) in the above chant?
When a person says to someone, “I am your Das (sevak)”, it means “I am lower than him, I am second to him, and so I want to serve him.”
Das (sevak) is always lower than the master. If a person is complete and perfect, why would he do slavery to someone else?
So, every day, we should do one round of chanting Brahmaham Krushna Dasosmi.
Shastriji Maharaj said that we should also do one round of mala chanting this mantra: “Hu adhuro chhu, marama khami chhe” meaning “I am incomplete, and I have scope to improve.”
Every day we should chant these two rounds of mala without fail by internally believing the meaning of those chants. With that eventually we will acquire all saintly virtues.
A saint finds faults in himself and finds virtues in others
Shreeji Maharaj has said, “You should always find faults in yourself.”
We could question, “Am I only filled with faults? Don’t I have any good qualities in me?”
Maharaj also said, “You should always find virtues in others.”
We could again question, “Are others free of all faults? Is there absolutely no fault in them? And why should I do that?”
If we have good qualities, and if we think “I have this quality in me which is not present in anyone,” then the flow of saintly qualities in us will be immediately stopped, which is a major setback.
The moment we believe we are good, at that very moment, the flow of saintly virtues into us will be stopped.
So, Maharaj has asked us to find faults in ourselves and find good virtues in others.
A saint or a devotee always tries to find faults in themselves, and they put effort to get rid of those faults.
Moreover, a saint or a devotee doesn’t counterattack. What is a counterattack here? When someone points our faults, if we argue with them by questioning “Are you free of faults? Don’t you have any fault at all?” it is counterattacking.
If someone points a fault to a true saint, and if that saint really has that fault, he will accept it. If he doesn’t have that fault, he would let it go and doesn’t argue about it.
Saintly people always take good points from scriptures and others, and always think, “How can I understand this point and take it in me?”
A saintly person extracts points to improve even if the feedback from others is not clear. He learns to improve from his own faults and learns to improve from the incidents of others’ lives, too.
A saint’s understanding is like Sitaji’s understanding
A saint wouldn’t blame anyone for anything. He always blames himself even if it is not his fault.
Shreeji Maharaj emphasized more on finding our own faults than gaining knowledge and detachment.
With that intention, Maharaj has said that a saint who has a mindset like Sitaji’s is better than a saint with knowledge and detachment.
Once Maharaj asked, “Let us say, there are two saints: One is full of knowledge and detachment, and the other has a mindset like Sitaji’s. With whom should we do satsang?”
The answer was, we should associate with the person whose mindset is like Sitaji’s.
What was the mindset of Sitaji?
When Ravan took away Sitaji, whose fault was that? Was that Ram’s fault? Or Sitaji’s?
Lord Ram, as a husband, should take care of protecting Sitaji, isn’t it? If Ravan took away Sitaji, it was Lord Ram’s fault, but everyone blamed Sitaji.
Yet she never found a mistake in Lord Ram or in anyone else.
When she was being sent to forests for the second time to leave her forever, she could have resisted with Lord Ram by arguing, “This time I am not going to forest. If you want to go again, you could.”
Instead, what did Sitaji do? She didn’t find any fault in Lord Ram but found faults in herself. “I am to be blamed,” “I did something wrong to be blamed.”
She searched for some fault within her even though she had no fault at all.
She accepted Bhagwan’s wish to go to forests again forever. That is the path of saintliness. She knew what Bhagwan would like. With that mindset, she gave up ego, luxury, and infatuations.
Maharaj asked us to do satsang with people of such mindset.
References:
- Chosathpadi Katha Part 30 (Pad 51-54).