HOW TO OVERCOME TEMPTATIONS - 9

[Guest guest]

HOW TO OVERCOME TEMPTATIONS - 9

Let us move on to practical suggestion number four. To a holy man I went when I

was a little boy, and said to him: "Teach me a way to overcome temptations" He

said to me: "I will suggest to you not one but three remedies."

The first, he said, is to avoid occasions. The second is to avoid occasions.

Yes, avoid occasions and in that way you will be free from many temptations.

Mohan was a little boy who had just recovered from an illness. He was still

weak, and the doctor had forbidden him to eat many things, one of which was

cake. One day, Mohan’s sister entered his room, eating a piece of cake with

another in her hands. The cake appeared tempting. But Mohan said to her: "You

must run right out of the room away from me with that cake. And I will keep my

eyes shut, while you go away, so that I should not want it!" Yes, the way to

overcome temptations is to avoid occasions.

A young man, who came to the satsang, was determined to change his way of life

by avoiding evil occasions. One day, he met a dangerous occasion, a girl of

questionable character with whom, at one time, he was very intimate. The girl

invited him to her room and said to him: "Honey, don’t I mean anything to you?

I’m still the same girl."

"Yes" replied the young man, "but I am not the same fellow." Saying thus, he ran

away as fast as his legs could carry him.

Avoid occasions. You have heard the story of fruit seller who said to the boy

who had been lingering too long near a tempting display of fruit: "What are you

doing? Trying to steal one of those apples?No" said the boy, "trying not to!"

In such a case, it is a good thing for a boy or a man to remove the temptation

by removing himself. One way of winning is not to be defeated. And the way not

to be defeated is to depart from the place and situation where defeat will

naturally result.

(To be continued; Author Sri. J.P. Vaswani)

Tamaso Ma Jyotirgamaya......

There was a young man, whose father passed away leaving him wealth untold. His

heart was fired with the love of God. He set out in search of a Guru who might

lead him out of untruth into truth, out of mortality into the Life Immortal. He

learnt of a teacher of spiritual wisdom. The teacher had an ashrama and who so

joined it must first dedicate all his property and possessions to the ashrama.

Accordingly, the young man sold all he had and gave to the Guru, who, in turn,

passed on to him the secret which was supposed to make him emancipated, free.

What was the secret? The young man was asked to affirm again and again "Aham

Brahmasmi!I am Brahman!I am God!I am the Supreme!" The young man did

so with all the sincerity and faith of which he was capable. "I am God!I am

the Supreme!" he repeated to himself again and again. The words were uttered

with every tick of the clock. What was the result? Far from being emancipated,

free, the young man’s condition grew more and more miserable. He felt

distressed in mind; he felt unhappy. In due course, he fell ill. He could no

longer stay at the ashrama.

Penniless, having given away all he had to the Guru, he came out of the ashrama

and as good fortune would have it, came in contact with another teacher. He

advised the young seeker to give up saying "I am God!" and to affirm instead,

"I am nothing!" This the young man did, and it was not long before he became

sound in body, mind and spirit.

How many are there who have attained to that high spiritual stage where they can

truthfully claim to be "God" or "sons of God?" When an ordinary man affirms he

is God, he is becoming, firstly, insincere, hypocritical and secondly,

egoistic.

A Sufi dervish said, "The man who has attained Godhood does not affirm, "I am

God". The man who affirms "I am God", has not attained Godhood."

The Sufi saint Mansur could raise the cry "Anal Haq!I am Truth!". But before

he attained that stage, he passed through fana, the stage of extinction of the

ego self-of-nothingness.

The bhakta knows he is nothing. The bhakta aspires to become a speck of dust at

the Lotus Feet of the Beloved. And so the bhakta grows in humility, from more

to more. He becomes as a little child, utterly dependent upon the Divine

Mother.

 

Mail – CNET Editors' Choice 2004. Tell them what you think.