The Master Answers

How ought we to live in the world?

Do all your duties, but keep your mind on God. Live with all--with wife and children, father and mother--and serve them.... But know in your heart of hearts that they do not belong to you. A maidservant in the house of a rich man brings up her master's children as if they were her own. She even speaks of them as 'my Rama' or 'my Hari'. But in her own mind she knows very well that they do not belong to her.

The tortoise moves about in the water. But can you guess where her thoughts are? They are on the bank, where her eggs are lying.

If you enter the world without first cultivating love for God, you will be entangled more and more. You will be overwhelmed with its danger, its grief, its sorrows. And more you think of worldly things, the more you will be attached to them.

First rub your hands with oil and then break open the jack-fruit; otherwise they will be smeared with its sticky milk. First secure the oil of divine love, and then set your hands to the duties of the world.

Live in the world like an ant. The world contains a mixture of truth and untruth, sugar and sand. Be an ant and take the sugar.

Again, the world is a mixture of milk and water, the bliss of God-consciousness and the pleasure of sense-enjoyment. Be a swan and drink the milk, leaving the water aside.

Live in the world like a waterfowl. The water clings to the bird, but the bird shakes it off. Live in the world like a mudfish. The fish lives in the mud, but its skin is always bright and shiny.

The world is indeed a mixture of truth and make-believe. Discard the make-believe and take the truth.

Live in the world like a cast-off leaf in a gale. Such a leaf is sometimes blown inside a house and sometimes to a rubbish heap. The leaf goes wherever the wind blows--sometimes to a good place and sometimes to a bad.

Live in the world but, in order to realize God, hold fast to His Lotus Feet with one hand and with the other do your duties. When you get a respite from your duties, cling to God's Lotus Feet with both hands--live in solitude and meditate on Him and serve Him ceaselessly.

A man must prepare beforehand, so that he may think of God in the hour of death. The way lies through constant practice. If a man practises meditation on God, he will remember God even on the last day of his life.

One should realize both the Nitya and the Lila and then live in the world as the servant of God. Hanuman saw both the Personal God and the formless Reality. He then lived as a devotee of God, as His servant.

A man must practise some spiritual discipline in order to be able to lead a detached life in the world. It is necessary for him to spend some time in solitude--be it a year, six months, three months, or even one month. In that solitude he should fix his mind on God and pray with a longing heart for love of God. He should also say to himself: 'There is nobody in this world who is my own. Those whom I call my own are here only for two days. God alone is my own. He alone is my all in all. Alas, how shall I realize Him?'

Together with this, you must practise discrimination. 'Women and gold' is impermanent... what does a man get with money? Food, clothes, and a dwelling-place--nothing nore. You cannot realize God with its help. Therefore money can never be the goal of life.

That is the process of discrimination.

--Compiled by a Child of Thakur