Shake off your slothfulness today!
‘Today, specially, I have to speak to people who feel weak to follow Sahaja Yoga, who are fickle minded, those who lack strength, those who are afraid of taking Sahaja Yoga seriously. It is very important that fickle mindedness must be seen clearly – why we are fickle. Mostly it might be the ego that is stopping you from doing something that is very, very important.
The ficklemindedness comes to us by various ways, as I said one of them is ego. A fickle minded person can be frightened by his own ego and he may stop doing Sahaja Yoga after going up to a point, because the ego might say now, “Here forward, if you go, there is a tunnel in which you cannot enter. You should not go any further. It’s very dangerous.” It could be marred by your Sloth. Sloth is the curse of this country I feel. It’s the curse of the Sahaja Yoga also. …
Meditation is very important after Sahaja Yoga. You have slept and slept all your life. Sleeping is not so important. You have to today promise Me that, from tomorrow, you all are going to get up in the morning and meditate. I was suggesting that if you take your baths in the morning would be better, so that you won’t have your sleepy condition.
Sloth is such a devious thing that you do not see it. It explains everything. If you say, “Oh I am sick” it will say, “Oh you are so sick you should go to the hospital”. If you say, “I’m tired” it will say, “You are extremely tired”. Why should you be so tired? It is nothing but your Sloth is telling you that, “You are extremely tired, you better not do meditation now you are extremely tired. You better take some rest, is important”.
Sloth is worse than super-ego and ego. Is a kind of an inertia which pulls you down, and that inertia you have to really throw away and get out of it. Because it explains everything, you like it, because it gives you little comfort, and you want to rely on your Sloth. But Krishna has said in Gita, that Sloth is the worst thing that can happen to human beings. If they take to Sloth, if they accept Sloth, they will have all explanations for being Slothful. He, “Alasya”, He calls it, is the worst disease according to Him, for any aspirant of spiritual life.
You may think that, “You see I’m not well now” or anything, Sloth can give you any ideas. Because I don’t have that so I don’t know what ideas it gives you but it can give you any kind of idea that would be very, very appealing to you because it knows how to please your ego.
Sloth is a ego- satisfying thing, ego-pampering stuff, and it makes you feel that, “Oh you are very tired”. What are you tired about? You are all young people, why should you be tired? You get tired so soon, is nothing but your Mr. Sloth telling you you are tired. You will be surprised, after feeling tired [if] you run for two miles, you can run. …
Laziness is the worst thing today. I know today is not a day to say all these things, but you all have to promise to Me that you are going to give up your laziness – Swaha. That’s what I have seen that, whenever I meet you people you are caught up.
Another thing which goes against Sahaja Yoga is, I have told you hundred times, I don’t know how many times, is to talk ill about other Sahaja Yogis. We are all part and parcel of one body, say we are all part and parcel of one hand. Now if this finger starts talking ill about this one, what is it going to do?
Talking ill about each other is a very wrong thing. So today also decide that, “We will never talk ill about anybody else but we’ll look at ourselves – what is our position.”
I’ve seen people passing remarks about other people who themselves are very badly caught up, and not worried about themselves. Now, by this, how are you going to improve? If you do not pay attention to yourself, and pay attention to others you cannot improve.
So another promise should be that, “We will not talk ill about other Sahaja Yogis.” But no Sahaja Yogi should take anything for granted. We have to really work very hard. So second habit of talking ill about other Sahaja Yogis should be Swaha, and thinking even about it.
You are absolutely cutting the threads of Sahaja Yoga, which I have very sweetly woven. Now you would be generous to Me, I know. You can be very generous, you have given Me a very beautiful painting, I am very thankful to you. But try to do it to others also – generosity. You should be really bound together and you can see then what we can produce.’
Birthday Puja Talk: Guarding Against Slothfulness. London (England), March 23rd, 1980. -excerpt
