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[Excerpts from letters and articles by Swami Chinmayananda]
Grihasthas can perfect themselves. They must keep on struggling for it. How?…. wait for Geeta discourses! The entire Geeta is a message for the Grihasthas. All our Rishis were householders. And very few of our so-called renounced men have reached any perfection at all. The intelligent conclusion is that, “to perfect from the home” is far better and easier. It is only a trick of changing our attitude. That is all!
The very structure in Hinduism recognises the householder’s existence only as a necessary training in curbing his animalism and purifying the greater heights of spiritualism. Cultural perfection was the goal. And every breath in the individual, every activity in his life, every thought in him, was marshalled and disciplined to bring out the symphony of the perfect Hindu culture.
In a noble and mutually loving joint family, every member is ready to make sacrifices for all. It is in itself a spiritual discipline! If your thoughts are noble, pure, loving and positive, all around you will feel the joy of being…. you change — the family, the community, will all change in their attitude towards you. Feel the unity and come to live a purposeful life of mutual understanding….what greater fulfill can you have than seeing an entire family bursting with joy at you, due to you, because of you!
The householder was trained to live a life of earning and hoarding, mating and breeding, building and keeping, only as a field of activity for him to train himself in the values of love, kindness, service and charity. Ultimately, the individual was valued upon the spirit of sacrifice he could show towards the finite when the call of the Infinite reached to smother his bosom. A householder is not barred from experiencing the Infinite Nature and gaining spiritual liberation. Married life is no bar for spiritual unfoldment is the Hindu insistence all along; our scriptures, and tradition supports this statement.
All our Rishis have married but “not” tangled with the family. They considered that the family is an environment provided by the Lord for their progress. And they made use of it by serving the family with love and affection. Hitch your mind on Him; be grateful to the family that He has provided; and pursue your life peacefully.
Duties of Grihasthashram is to be considered as first responsibility. Lord has given you certain duties and you must learn to fulfil them completely. There is nothing less noble in the sacred life of a house-holder if we know how to live in self-control and in inner contentment. Be careful in your inner thoughts and therefore in your outer words and actions. With remembrance of Him, serve all around you, always. This is the greatest Pooja, the highest Prayer we can raise to our Creator. By selfless self-surrender alone you can maintain the web of the family — this itself is the greatest Sadhana.
Yield yourself to the family and domestic duties joyously. You have a status to maintain, a family to serve, children to be moulded and brought up. The Lord has come to you in the form of these close relations — how dare you leave Him and seek Him – in – elsewhere? When the time for that comes all these relationships will disappear as a mist and you will be alone to seek Him at your own Heart-Centre. Give the Lord the credit of a better intelligence than yourself, and submit to His treatment of your life.
Women — they were unquestioned queens of their homes, the divine mothers of their society, mistresses of their world, to whom, in a loyalty motivated by love, tempered by consideration, honeyed by sympathy and devotion, sweetened by understanding, the menfolk paid their homage!
Practise Sincerely. Live continuously, all the hours round the clock, your life, in the consciousness of the Divine and the Supreme, the True and the Eternal. Play the GAME of LIFE: play the part to which you have been called on the stage, but forget not the greater mission in life, the greater goal that is to be achieved. Live the STAGE-LIFE perfectly and play the part exactly as the Lord, the Manager and the Playwright, had intended it to be played. His intentions are codified and indicated in the great text-books on Dharma which preach the higher values of life, viz, the ethical and moral rules of life. Live well. Live in kindness, love and understanding.
Thus doing the job also you can have close companionship with Him. Don’t protest; He is Omniscient and Omnipotent. He knows you; and your worldly domestic discipline, perhaps, is very much needed for your growth. How dare you become more intelligent than the Lord Himself? Joyfully do the job and make that very doing as a part of meditation upon Him. In householders life there are periods of time when Lord makes you to face challenges to put more chime into our personality. With devotion and surrender, face them all with a smile in the full assurance that His help will always come to us.
In the pursuit of his vocation, the householder was not asked to spare any special time or to sacrifice his duties either towards himself, or his own children, or to the society, or to the nation, or to the world; but, while emphasizing the need for pursuing his duties on all these levels, he is asked to keep continuously in touch with the scriptures and to preach the same truth to others; both by his words and his actions.
It is not the status of the householder that binds and obstructs your quietude and peace but it is the sense of possession and clinging attachment to the things and beings around us. The toys that are meant for children to play can become a bone of contention and a source of sorrow for the child when it gets attached to it. Remove the sense of attachment. Whatever we have here is, all belongs to Him. Each one of us has been given a share of it to play with. If this wisdom dawns in you, the possession never brings disturbances in you.
Even a householder, when he contemplates and meditates upon the Reality, or worships and adores the Divine with great devotion, will enjoy the rewards of his personality liberation from all its mortal agitations and sorrows. “Nama Smaran” by yourself or with your family members, assists you in preventing the entry into your mind of various thoughts about the objects of the world around and helps to eradicate the flutterings of the mind.A householder, when he learns to work and strive in a continuous spirit of dedication, even he must necessarily experience the Nature Divine.
……the spiritual learning and life — don’t say there is no progress. Even to remain human, in these days, is spirituality enough! Keep it all up….all Lord’s Grace. That WITNESS knows all. He guides and leads. Follow Him. Live a true Hindu life — satsangh at home frequently, honest work, and sharing your profits with the community for its spiritual rehabilitation.Over-enthusiasm in spirituality should not force you to neglect your duties towards your family. The time wasted in small talks can be creatively used for the spiritual unfoldment.Be independent. All relationships will be tossing up and down, and can never be steady. Your relationship with Him, in your heart alone can be the same.
Have a spirit of dedication unto the Lord and roam happily through life in the safe and true belief that “He is the Truth: His Will Alone Be Done; May I be ever an instrument in His hands and through this body may His plans be fulfilled.” To such a pure “Nishkama Grihastha,” even sages will bow in reverence!
An ideal life of worldly pursuits and spiritual life. This is the ideal Grihastha life described in our text-books – this is Grihastha Dharma!
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