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The Duties of a Householder
Family first, Charity next
No person has a right to indulge in charity until his family needs
are fully satisfied. No person has a right to give away money or gifts
until he has made absolutely sure that such gifts are coming out of
available surplus in the family's means of existence. Otherwise it is
merely a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul. On superficial examination
this looks to be a very very selfish approach.
I had a long discussion with Master on this once. Master said, "Look!
Suppose you want to give away a sum of money as charity, and your family
will suffer because of it, can you call this charity? I would only call
it foolishness. What is your duty as a grihastha? When you married and
accepted the responsibilities of a family existence, you accepted to
fulfill certain duties by the family. These duties are totally obligatory.
Therefore, if your gift is going to make the family suffer, then it
is not a gift at all, it is not charity. You are really robbing your
own family. Look here! How can this robbery be called charity?"
I then asked Master whether such an act of charity would be justified
if the other members of the family agreed to it. Master answered, "No!
It cannot make it right. Which Hindu wife will go against her husband's
wishes? And in the case of religious performances or ceremonies they
will not oppose it. It is for you to decide what is your duty, and then
it is your duty to follow that correctly. If you consult others you
are only trying to shift the blame and responsibility on others."
It is well known that when you give charity in ostentatious manner,
it ceases to be a charity. It makes the recipient a beggar. All the
greatness attributed to Jesus Christ, "Let not the right hand know what
the left hand is doing." It has two purposes; when you give ostentatiously
you make the other man squirm under your generosity and your friendship.
He hates you for that. And if the left hand knows what the right hand
is giving which means, I know what I am giving to someone. It makes
the giver arrogant, prideful, boastful, 'I', 'I'. And I help so and
so. It harms two people at one time - the giver and the receiver.
How do we invite trouble in our families?
Many couple have problems because the husband comes for Sahaj Marg,
he does not bring his wife in the beginning. He says, "I should not
impose. She should come." After some time she refuses to come. She says,
"You were never interested in me. Why didn't you take me? What is good
for you, is it not good for me?" Then you cannot say, "No, no, you know,
I did not want to impose." Are you not imposing everything else? How
will you answer that wife? So, the right time is the beginning. And
if you had done that and said, "Come, let us go," like we are going
anywhere else, there also we go, there is no problem. But if you let
it lie, after six months, eight months, one year, you cannot make her
come at all. Then she starts rebelling against Sahaj Marg.
Each one should become a model
When we become acceptable only, our families will not rebel. They will
not protest. In fact they will say, "If this is what you have become,
why not you take me?" You are self-centred. I would love to see a time
when a wife would tell her meditating husband, "you have been married
to me. You call me wife and you don't have the love (you protest that
you have) to take me with you. We are supposed to be companions for
life. Doing everything together. What about meditation? Why do you leave
me here?" There are many people here who have this problem, who have
have faced it and successfully surmounted it. There are many who are
still struggling here. Because this is the only reason, you never introspect
with truth. You never think, 'Am I the same person I was last year when
my wife objected, or my husband objected. And if so, if the answer is
'yes', happy; 'if it is no, what am I doing about it? When will my wife
change? She will change, when I change. There is no real change in most
husbands who are afraid of their wives, and there is no real change
in women abhyasis who are afraid that their husbands will leave them
because they don't like the woman meditating.
Role of Sex
Once, I remember, in the West somebody asked Babuji about the role
of sex. My Master said, "God is not a fool to have created two sexes
if one was enough." It is like saying 'why were the trees made to bear
fruits and seeds - for propagation. So there is a right way of using
everything. There is an indulgent way; there is also a devoted and dedicated
way. So Nature has given us this system which was designed to be perfect
by a Creator, who cannot create any imperfect thing.
We should be happy with what we have been blessed with, in the confidence
that we have got what we earned in our past lives, by our own thoughts,
our own samskaras. It could not be worse, it could not be better. For
the future, yes. I am not talking about husbands, incidentally - future.
A husband is for life, a wife is for life; but the husband can become
a better husband. You don't have to change husbands to have a better
husband. You can make the same husband a better husband. Like when the
fire is dying down, you put in a few more logs, and it burns brighter,
you see. You don't change your fire.
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