Right and Wrong

[Guest guest]

TALK 453.

 

Three ladies are on a short visit here, Mrs. Hearst from New Zealand,

Mrs. Craig and Mrs. Allison from London. One asked: What is the best

way to work for world peace?

 

M.: What is world? What is peace, and who is the worker? The world is

not in your sleep and forms a projection of your mind in your jagrat.

It is therefore an idea and nothing else. Peace is absence of

disturbance. The disturbance is due to the arising of thoughts in the

individual, who is only the ego rising up from Pure Consciousness. To

bring about peace means to be free from thoughts and to abide as Pure

Consciousness. If one remains at peace oneself, there is only peace

all about.

 

D.: If it is a question of doing something one considers wrong, and

hereby saving someone else from a great wrong, should one do it or

refrain?

 

M.: What is right and wrong? There is no standard by which to judge

something to be right and another to be wrong. Opinions differ

according to the nature of the individual and according to the

surroundings. They are again ideas and nothing more. Do not worry

about them. But get rid of thoughts. If you always remain in the

right, then right will prevail in the world.

 

D.: What should one think of when meditating?

 

M.: What is meditation? It is expulsion of thoughts. You are perturbed

by thoughts which rush one after another. Hold on to one thought so

that others are expelled. Continuous practice gives the necessary

strength of mind to engage in meditation.

 

Meditation differs according to the degree of advancement of the

seeker. If one is fit for it one might directly hold the thinker; and

the thinker will automatically sink into his source, namely Pure

Consciousness. If one cannot directly hold the thinker one must

meditate on God; and in due course the same individual will have

become sufficiently pure to hold the thinker and sink into absolute

Being.

 

One of the ladies was not satisfied with this answer and asked for

further elucidation.

 

Sri Bhagavan then pointed out that to see wrong in another is one's

own wrong. The discrimination between right and wrong is the origin of

the sin. One's own sin is reflected outside and the individual in

ignorance superimposes it on another. The best course for one is to

reach the state in which such discrimination does not arise. Do you

see wrong or right in your sleep? Did you not exist in sleep? Be

asleep even in the wakeful state. Abide as the Self and remain

uncontaminated by what goes on around. Moreover, however much you

might advise them, your hearers may not rectify themselves. Be in the

right yourself and remain silent. Your silence will have more effect

than your words or deeds. That is the development of will-power. Then

the world becomes the Kingdom of Heaven, which is within you.

 

D.: If one is to withdraw oneself, why is there the world?

 

M.: Where is the world and where does one go withdrawing oneself? Does

one fly in an aeroplane beyond space? Is it withdrawal? The fact is

this: the world is only an idea. What do you say: Are you within the

world or is the world within you?

 

D.: I am in the world. I am part of it.

 

M.: That is the mistake. If the world were to exist apart from you,

does it come and tell you that it exists? No, you see it exists. You

see it when you are awake and not when asleep. If it exists apart from

you, it must tell you so and you must be aware of it even in your sleep.

 

D.: I became aware of it in my jagrat.

 

M.: Do you become aware of yourself and then of the world? Or do you

become aware of the world and then of yourself? Or do you become aware

of both simultaneously?

 

D.: I must say simultaneously.

 

M.: Were you or were you not, before becoming aware of yourself? Do

you admit your continued existence before and when you become aware of

the world?

 

D.: Yes.