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Change your ways
By Sant Kirpal Singh, excerpts from "The Teachings of Kirpal Singh", Vol. II, page 16 - 21

O man, it is the time now to discard your old, disreputable habits and adopt new ones. Habits are formed by repeatedly doing the same things, so we should first unravel all the bad actions: lies, hypocrisy, cheating, criticism of others, enmity, avarice, malice, backbiting, and various others. If you do not intend to change these ways, what is the use of attending Satsang? Your steps are forward, but your mind is retrogressing. Satsang is the means of making us into something beautiful, but not by merely repeating God's name. Change your habits now into good ones, for habit turns into nature with time. Cast away all negative thoughts, and instil positive ones in their place. If a person does wrong, forgive him, and he in turn should forgive your misdeeds.

In the Koran, it is written, even God has no thought for him who has no inclination to change. How can we expect other people to show excellent examples? If we ourselves would change, the whole world would change with us. It is a message for all.

One of the worst habits is that of criticizing others. All virtues exercised in righteous living are good, but that of ahimsa-parmo-dharam (non-violence of thought) is the highest. It can become a daily habit, for it lies inherent within us all, and although other thoughts are there, yet consciously or unconsciously it is working and will rise to the surface one day. That is why you are told frequently in Satsang that the past is past, forgive and forget, and do not make a foundation of bad thoughts or there will undoubtedly be reactions. You will be the loser, for again you will revolve on the cycle of births and deaths. So with love the Masters encourage their children to change their habits while there is still time.

You should know it for certain that you are divine in all respects and are the master of your destiny which is full of higher potentialities. You are simply to make exertion to change for the better, and firmly stick to your resolutions. All else is to follow of itself, as the Gracious Masterpower is at your side to extend all feasible help, grace and protection.

The more one aspires to weed out the imperfections by daily introspection, the more serene bliss and grace come from above. Patience and selflessness are ennobling virtues. Right understanding is the basis of all happiness. You should not worry about past or new karmas. If at every moment you are consciously watching your behaviour, a calm consideration will replace a blind instinctive reaction to certain situations in life where the choice lies between committing a lapse in behaviour or avoiding it.

They should guard against the five deadly sins of desire, anger, greed, infatuation and vanity, and develop instead the virtues of truth, chastity, non-injury, universal love, and selfless service.

The paths leading to worldly enrichment and to God lie far apart. One can take either of the two, as one may like. The mind is a single entity linking the body with the soul at one end and the body with the world and worldly riches at the other. Thus one has of necessity to choose between the two alternatives. Once the die is cast, one has perforce to apply oneself steadily to reach the goal whatever it be.

In short, the sincere and conscientious aspirant will reorient his entire mode of life, in eating and drinking, thinking, acting, feeling, etc. He will gradually weed out of his mind all irrelevant and unhealthy desires, until he gradually attains the state of purity and simplicity that marks the child.

Make a wave of receptivity from heart to heart – this is the way to realize the Lord. Become even a little receptive and the Master in you will restrain you when you are in danger of going wrong. The dear ones should have their lives well disciplined and carefully regulated in the larger interests of their spiritual progress. One thing at a time and that, too, with single-minded attention and devotion. That is keeping the house in order. A kind thought will attract all the kindness of the universe, and contrarily, a vicious idea will create a vicious circle by accepting all vice in the universe. A mango sapling will attract all the sweetness of the soil whereas, if a pepper seed is sown a little apart, it will attract all its bitterness; both the plants will flourish with the varying elements of mother nature, yet on the same soil. One is full of all sweetness and the other of all bitterness. That is the eternal law. Human heart is the soil in which good and bad thoughts are the seeds, which when sown carefully are sure to be grown gradually by honest and correct cultivation. You are to choose the best virtues for acceptance and inculcating in your life, when you can expect a bumper crop in due course. You are free to some extent and can benefit from this limited liberty by hard work, right living and regulated discipline. Just learn to implant lofty ideas in your subconscious mind and feed them with the waters of self-confidence, determination, diligence and adaptability. Stick to your guns. Never stoop low, never and still never. Stand aloof with your sublime principles of life which will stand by you in the hour of need.

Hence it is, that mystics of all traditions have been untiring in their stress of the need for absolute self-surrender. It was this cross of sacrifice of the self, the ego, of which Jesus spoke when he exhorted his disciples to bear their cross daily. For in every little act, word, or thought, the ego is seeking to dominate us and if the seeker is to triumph over it, he must be prepared to crucify it every moment.

To fall in sin is manly, but to remain there is devilish. One falls often, no doubt, but one becomes a good rider only after many a fall. But don't lie down and remain wherever you fall; that is bad! In the Koran it is written that God will not change any people who have no thought to change themselves. Where there is a will, there is a way. Keep your aim before you always, and work for it; then you will be sure of success.

Success in spirituality is not the difficult task which most of us take it to be or make it to be; but it does require patient self-purification, a watchful introspection, a careful weeding out of all undesirable elements present and a pruning of outspreading ramifications; and above all, timely tending and nurturing of the tender spiritual sapling as it sprouts from the soil of the human mind.

This work hangs on the shoulders of every one of you and I am sure that you are fully alive to your responsibilities and obligations in this behalf. Until one can love, obey and transform one’s life, the gift of the Master remains as a seed locked away in a steel vault that cannot sprout and grow to fruition.