Q: What is the right way to deal with illness?
PR: Why is there no question on how to handle health? There should be, if everything is samskara. The question arises because we have a tendency to accept all the good things that happen to us as ours, and all the bad things as given to us by some non-benign providence or our samskaras. My Master once told me that people are willing to give him all their illness, their misery, their poverty, but nobody is willing to give him their wealth, their riches, their happiness. He said it is like two friends sharing a banana. One man peels it and eats the fruit and gives the skin to the other person. Somebody asked Babuji, "What is the right way?" He said, "Well, either give me both or keep both." So that is the answer. The other thing is, when we are sick, we should leave it to the doctor.
Duty
Q: There can be conflicting situations between one's duty to the family and one's duty towards spiritual development. For example the husband doesn't accept that the wife is meditating. Is there a guideline how to handle such a situation?
PR: Very long question. [laughter] The first answer is, that there is only one duty. There is not such a thing as a duty to the family, a duty to day, or a duty to night. We are governed by duty. No, that answer is complete in itself. But just to explain a little further, I will answer more and tell you that if you are satisfied with just doing the duty to others — there is no problem. We want to satisfy others, make others happy also. That's where all this problem comes.
There used to be a time in England, when you had what is called a 'baker's dozen'. When you came to a baker and asked for a dozen breads, you actually got thirteen loaves of bread — one bread extra. Why I say it, because it is of course a joke also. When you have plenty of time and plenty of resources you can do more than what is necessary. In those days there was plenty of wheat, less population. So the baker could give you one loaf more, every time you took a dozen breads. That was to please the customer.
Similarly, when we have nothing else to do, we are welcome to please our relations with more than what is necessary to be done. But now we are in a situation where we have less and less time, and more and more to do. That is one thing.
The other is: You have also a duty to yourself. And spiritual wisdom has always said, unless you do your duty to yourself, you cannot possibly do your duty to others. The principle is the same, like we have a right, almost I say a divine right, to have our needs fulfilled, but not our wants.
Similarly our duty is also to be limited to what has to be done as a duty and no more. So I repeat, it is our anxiety to please that harms us, not the performance of duty itself. The final answer is given in Autobiography of Ram Chandra Vol. II, and you should all read it. One concept in Sahaj Marg which is most appropriate in this context is that a transmission must be of the exact dosage that is necessary. Just because you love an abhyasi you cannot go on transmitting. There is always the consideration of the deservingness of the abhyasi, and the second consideration is of the abhyasi's capacity to absorb the transmission. I would suggest this idea of dosage should also be considered as appropriate to our duty. What is necessary should be done and no more.
There is also another concept about friends. I've told you this many times before, because very often when this question of duty and responsibility to family comes, it is really the friends who are involved. Master has said the only friend is the Master, because the spiritual definition of friend is one who is willing to give his life for you, and the Master is doing this every time he transmits. That is why it is called pranasya pranah, the life of life.
Another idea I would suggest in this same context. Master once said that we should be grateful for everything that we receive. But it is impossible to go about expressing our gratitude to everything that we have got. Yes, you know, you cannot say thank you to the chicken for giving the egg, thank you to the tree for giving the fruit, thank you to the field for giving the potatoes, it's not possible. So we fulfill our duty to everything in one grand act of gratitude to the Master: "Thank you, Master, for everything I've received." Because in spirituality we believe that we can't get anything which the Master will not permit us to take. So the chickens may lay their eggs, but we would not get any unless the Master wishes us to. You see, this is not a joke, because if you consider that when you pray to Master you get everything, why don't you pray to the chicken, why not to the cow and to the tree?
You see, this is the spiritual law that what you get does not depend on what nature produces. Nature produces in profusion, but we will not get until He permits us. I'm trying to suggest that we should look at duty the same way, and when we perform our duty to the Master, all our duty is over. He looks after the rest for our sake, He even looks after our duties for us.
This is nothing but again going back to the idea of surrender, that even our duty we surrender to the Master. Because what we do in surrender is to surrender ourselves, the self is surrendered; when the self has gone, now whose is the duty? So the existence of these conflicts indicates the existence of the 'I'.
Thank you very much.
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