Take life as it comes and be glad that it has been lived fruitfully through living each day in the best of manner. One who has attained this finds life pleasant and purposeful and he is able to radiate similar vibrations to others. A truly spiritually developed one is always pleasant to be with and he easily attracts love and friendship like a magnet attracts iron filings. With the realisation that life is very short, there is no time to waste. There is a great purpose in life to be fulfilled and one has already spent more than one half of life without much spiritual attainments. Therefore whatever time is available should not only be spent in worldly pursuits alone. Being one who has the necessary teachings to develop wisdom, why not discard all non-meritorious deeds and perform only beneficial ones for the rest of this lifetime! When death comes, nothing but the good deeds of this lifetime will determine where rebirth shall be. So those who live foolishly and selfishly, spending all their time in useless and silly pursuits that are causes of misery, will most certainly take birth in the miserable realms.
If one’s aim is just to accumulate as much worldly possessions as possible, and to enjoy life as much as possible, he will never realise his goals and will most likely cause many to suffer in the course of his greedy and selfish pursuits. Such a person is no better than an animal and he may yet be born an animal in some lifetimes! Those who hold such view about life will never be able to experience mental calm, especially at the hour of death!
Having no spiritual knowledge, the future is quite unclear and fear will set upon such minds. One must never fall into this situation. To die with fear and anger in the mind will rob one of his chance to receive a good rebirth and even when such a person has the good fortune to be in the human realm again, his mentality can hardly be turned towards goodness because his mind will be filled with unwholesome traits. This means that such negativities will someday become causes of suffering and dissatisfactions. One whose mind is polluted with defilements cannot find the right and congenial environment or circumstance to live righteously and whatever comes through the doors of body, speech and mind are likely to be soiled by defiled tendencies. What are the defilements that are polluting our minds? They can be in the forms of greed, anger, lust, jealousy, attachments and so on. Therefore it is important that one should spend time in contemplation to identify one’s own defilements and then make a commitment to live righteously to eradicate all defilements!
Tuesday, 3rd February 1987 (1st Moon 15th Day)