Emotional Maturity - Swami Dayanand Saraswati

[Guest guest]

Emotional Maturity – Swami Dayananda Saraswati The Goal of Life & Living

If death is the goal of life, I need not have been born at all. I was not there

before I was born in this form and so I need not be born in order to achieve a

state I already had been before I was born.

 

What exactly is the aim of life? It can only be living. The question is what is

living?

 

Complete growth is only in terms of emotional maturity. Once I become

emotionally mature, from that time onwards I begin to live. Otherwise my

struggle, my spiritual seeking, all these remain unconnected.

 

There are always pleasant and unpleasant situations in life. This situation

existed in Satyayuga and Tretayuga and Dwaparayuga and it is there in Kaliyuga.

 

Pain can remain unpleasant all your life, treasured in memory, or it can an

experience out of which you can grow to become greater than pain.

 

Every one is given this set up called the world. Mark the word “given”. This is

my father, given. This is mother, given. I was born at a time and place, given.

Everything is given to us. A question naturally arises: is there a Giver and if

there is what is His nature? When I am helpless in controlling my reactions, I

can approach the Giver for help.

 

One who has lived one’s life growing, getting something out of every experience,

is a mature person, ready to accept facts.

 

 

On being Judgmental

I just want you to see what immaturity is. To judge yourself as immature is

another form of immaturity. It is not so much to judge as to understand what I

am saying.

 

The first thing about a mature person is the capacity to accept facts and do

what is to be done.

 

All varnasrama-dharma, all ethical values, all forms of worship, prayers, etc.,

and even study of Vedanta are meant to make you a mature person.

 

In the process of fulfillment of your likes and dislikes, you also pick up fears

and anxieties etc. because you could not always fulfill your likes and dislikes.

 

One does not see more than what one knows and one’s fears and anxieties set

one’s perceptions and therefore a world which is simple, harmless can be taken

to be a world that is harmful, that seems to have conspired against oneself.

 

All of us are mature with reference to a few things. Can we be mature with

reverence to everything else? That is the maturity Vedanta talks about.

 

-------

 

to be continued

 

Hari Om

 

 

 

 

for Good

Click here to donate to the Hurricane Katrina relief effort.