The Place to Start from

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Sumati, a devoted wife, lived a happy life except for one problem--

her husband's smoking habit. Anil, Sumati's husband, was a compulsive

smoker. He had been caught into this habit for more than four years

now and this had been the cause of the couple's squabble--Sumati did

not approve of Anil's smoking habit and seemed tired of asking him to

change his ways. Anil too, at times, appeared to struggle to come out

of his habit. Then, one day in desperation, Sumati decided to take

help of their good old family physician, Mr Lal. A man of uncommon

understanding of human nature, Mr Lal was well known to both of them

and was reputed for his wisdom and loving care.

 

'What is the matter?' asked Mr Lal. Sumati broke into a sob and

expressed her inability to make Anil change his ways. 'I am tired of

telling him to . . .,' she moaned. 'Is there no way out?' she asked

Mr Lal.

 

After a little thought, Mr Lal turned to Sumati and said, 'If you

want to help Anil, then do one thing: stop nagging him for two

months.'

 

Though it sounded quite puzzling, Sumati agreed and returned home.

 

Next time she saw Anil smoking and as usual wanted to point it out to

him, she restrained herself. She, however, found it very difficult to

keep silent. This went on--this struggle to not nag him anymore. It

was a fierce battle but since she had given her words to Mr Lal, she

kept on struggling. At the end of two months, she was at Mr Lal's

again.

 

'How was it? Could you keep your words?' asked Mr Lal.

 

'To some extent. But it was so very difficult,' replied Sumati.

 

'Look here, Sumati,' said Mr Lal with a smile, 'how difficult you

find to overcome your own habit. How can you then ask Anil to

overcome his? When it is so very challenging to overcome one's own

habit, how much more challenging it would be someone to overcome his

habit? He may find it equally hard and challenging.'

 

Sumati felt as if a great covering had been removed from her

mind. 'Indeed, Anil needs understanding. May be he too has tried but

failed, like me failing to overcome my nagging-habit. I must be more

considerate and careful in my estimation of Anil's problem.' She

decided to turn to a new leaf. Her self- acceptance gave her an

insight into how human mind works and she became more understanding

and wise. She could no longer dislike Anil and this helped Anil to

slowly wean away from his habit.

 

The moral of the story is simple: if we want to change others, we

must begin from ourselves. First self-change, then changing others.

May be a better way of saying it would be: keep doing them

simultaneously. On the one hand, constant self-analysis, self-

amendment and self-improvement, and on the other, helping others to

do the same. Or as Swami Vivekananda said, 'atmano mokshartham, jagad

hitayacha,' 'For the liberation of oneself and for the good of

others.'

 

One thing stands clear: however appealing it might sound, it is not

easy to change ones' habits. Explains Swamiji in his lucid style:

 

'We do not look at our own faults; the eyes do not see themselves,

they see the eyes of everybody else. We human beings are very slow to

recognise our own weakness, our own faults, so long as we can lay the

blame upon somebody else. Men in general lay all the blame of life

upon their fellow-men, or, failing that, on God, or they conjure up a

ghost, and say it is fate. Where is fate, and who is fate? We reap

what we sow. We are the makers of our own fate. None else has the

blame, none has the praise.'

 

The first step towards self-improvement, thus, lies in owning up the

responsibility. One thing that we seem to enjoy is to 'discover'

others' faults and weaknesses and at the same time ignoring our own.

Only when we are conscious about our own weaknesses as weaknesses, we

will want to change them. If we justify them under the pretext that

circumstances or other people have made us weak or are standing in

our way of growth, there is no way we can overcome them. In such

circumstances even if someone points out our mistakes, we are likely

to counteract them with our own self-righteous argument and

explanations. We should never forget that self-justification is often

another form of self-deception. Sri Ramakrishna was very fond of a

Bengali Bhajan:

 

O Mother, I have no one else to blame:

 

Alas! I sink in the well these very hands have dug.

 

With the six passions for my spade,

 

I dug a pit in the sacred land of earth;

 

And now the dark water of death gushes forth!

 

The song captures the spirit of spiritual maturity with great

felicity. The composer (Dasarathi Roy, a popular Bhajan-composer) is

candid and frank in stating that what he suffers from (and we all

suffer) is not the tyranny of an outside person but the shackles of

self-created misery for which no one else is to be blamed.

 

Sometimes we wonder why we are what we are. Every day we face

troubles in life. While some of them are caused by others, directly

or indirectly, a good number of our problems are self-generated. We

have caused them through our immaturity and impatience. In a sense we

are our own ancestors. Just as physically speaking we have inherited

our bodies and our cultural training from our ancestors,

psychologically speaking we have inherited the results of our own

actions. Sometimes these actions are in the forms of 'inactions'

which means even our inactivity (such as not caring to prepare for a

school exam or not doing physical exercises) also produces a result,

a psychological residue as well as product in the cause-and-effect

chain. Says Swamiji:

 

'Deep down in our subconscious mind are stored up all the thoughts

and acts of the past, not only of this life, but of all other lives

we have lived... Each one of these is striving to be recognized,

pushing outward for expression, surging, wave after wave, out upon

the objective mind, the conscious mind. These thoughts, the stored-up

energy, we take for natural desires, talents, etc. It is because we

do not realise their true origin. We obey them blindly,

unquestioningly; and slavery, the most helpless kind of slavery, is

the result; and we call ourselves free. Free! We who cannot for a

moment govern our own minds, nay, cannot hold our minds on a subject,

focus it on a point to the exclusion of everything else for a moment!

Yet we call ourselves free. Think of it! We cannot do as we know we

ought to do even for a very short space of time. Some sense-desire

will crop up, and immediately we obey it. Our conscience smites us

for such weakness, but again and again we do it, we are always doing

it. We cannot live up to a high standard of life, try as we will. The

ghosts of past thoughts, past lives hold us down. All the misery of

the world is caused by this slavery to the senses. Our inability to

rise above the sense-life, the striving for physical pleasures, is

the cause of all the horrors and miseries in the world.'

 

Once we discover how we have made ourselves--through our actions

and 'inactions' --we also make another important discovery: the place

from where to start our inner journey of self-change is not outside

but inside. While external changes are helpful--in some circum-

stances, essential and indispensable--what is most needed is clear

understanding of the whole issue. The first step towards embarking on

the inner journey is willingness to change and a wholesome acceptance

of oneself. This inner step is what is meant by humility. As goes the

biblical adage: 'Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the

kingdom of heaven.' Sri Krishna starts teaching in the Gita only when

Arjuna admits his weakness and seeks help.

 

Spiritual life is a multi-disciplinary approach. Though the goal of

all aspiration is one and same, experiencing the Presence of Divine

or realizing the Self, the approach to this ideal can be, and in a

way has to be, diverse and varied. Spiritual journey of mankind has

been variously described. Swami Vivekananda was very fond of treating

religion as a science of inner word. He would say,

 

'It is grand and good to know the laws that govern the stars and

planets; it is infinitely grander and better to know the laws that

govern the passions, the feelings, the will, of mankind. This

conquering of the inner man, understanding the secrets of the subtle

workings that are within the human mind, and knowing its wonderful

secrets, belong entirely to religion.'

 

Sri Ramakrishna compared spiritual practices to an art. Once when he

went to watch a circus, he was much impressed by an English woman

riding a running horse, standing on its horse's back. He later said,

 

'You must practice every day. The other day, at the circus, I saw a

horse running at top speed, with an English woman standing on one

foot on its back. How much she must have practiced to acquire that

skill!'

 

Another eminent authority compares spiritual striving to the act of

keeping accounts:

 

'Through pure actions and thoughts you should accumulate enough merit

to counter the demerits you have acquired. Later on, the whole

account of merit and demerit is to be made nothing. But, at first,

there must be a balancing of the account; both merit and demerit must

be squared up so that the balance is nil. You must close your old

account. You must put a stop to your old life. There should be no

craving for fresh worldly company and worldly talk and amusements.

The whole spiritual life lies in this fearless adjustment. Today,

with you all, it is all a minus balance, and now you must earn

spiritual merit sufficiently so as to square up the account. Only

then a new account may be begun. Spiritual life means opening a new

account.'

 

In sum, whether one treats spirituality as a science or an art or an

act of inner balancing of accounts, what is most essential is

openness and receptivity to inner change. Those who fake humility can

never be prepared to accept their failings or be open to suggestion

and change. One needs strength to become truly humble. The place to

start from is here and now.

 

(Source: The Vedanta Kesari, August 2007)