Swamiji's Messages

Discouragement

Negative conditions like dejection, depression, despair, melancholy, inferiority feelings, self-condemnation, pessimism are all unspiritual and undivine. They are regarded as the devil's tools. But of them all, the first place is taken by discouragement. If you lose heart, and get discouraged, a downward plunge commences.It was once announced that the devil was going out of business and would offer all tools for sale to whomsoever would pay his price. On the night of the sale they were all attractively displayed - a bad looking lot. Malice, Hatred, Envy, Jealousy, Sensuality and Deceit, and all the other implements of evil were spread out, each marked with its price. Apart from the rest, lay a harmless looking wedge shaped tool, much worn and priced higher than any of the them. Someone asked the devil what it was."That's Discouragement", was the reply."Why do you have it priced so high?""Because", replied the devil, "It is more useful to me than any of the others. I can pry open and get inside a man's conscience with that when I could not get near him with any of the others, and when once inside, I can use him in whatever way suits me best. It is so much worn out because I use it with everybody, as very few people know it belongs to me".It hardly need be added that the devil's price for Discouragement was so high that it was never sold. He still owns it and is using it.

It is meaningless to think that the universe binds you. The universe has no power because it is inert. It cannot hold you down from becoming whatever you wish to become. It is you who clings to it. It is you who is aware of its existence, who acts and sets up relationships. Bondage arises from you, not from samsara, not from this creation of God.The universe is meant to be a help for your evolution. It is you, the conscious being that makes God's creation a help or a hindrance. Anything and everything around us, be it tobacco, liquor, gambling dens, narcotics, money, bad company - they do not attack us, they do not pursue us or have a malevolent intention towards us, they can do nothing, they have no power. It is we who endow them with power.The rare gift of an invaluable human life has been bestowed upon u, only after passing through eighty four lacs of births minus one. As such it is not at all to be wasted in silently suffering from egoism, selfishness, fears, and anxieties, desires and cravings, physical ailments and other such painful conditions..