10 May 1972 · English

"Obeying orders by staying in your self-respect"

Do you consider yourselves to have the courage to stay in your stage of self-respect and also be able to follow Baba's instructions? To be able to remain stable in your stage of self-respect and be able to follow instructions: do you consider yourselves to be moving along well in both these things? If you do not stabilise yourself in your stage of self-respect, there would then be something or other lacking in following instructions. Therefore, stabilise yourself in both aspects accurately and create such a stage for all time. You have to stabilise yourselves in the most elevated stage of self-respect of you Brahmins of the present confluence age. By your remaining stable in this one elevated stage of self-respect, all the different types of arrogance of the body easily and automatically finish. In some cases, whilst doing service or whilst making effort, you make a very tiny mistake of just one word through which more mistakes are made. The seed of all mistakes is the weakness of one word. What is that word? You remove the word “self” from self-respect. You forget your self-respect; and, then, by wanting respect (maan) you forget the instructions (farmaan). You have been given the instruction to stabilise yourself in your self-respect, but by your wanting respect, the instructions are finished. By making this mistake of one word, you make many more mistakes. Then, when you want respect, your way of speaking, walking, doing, everything changes. Just by cutting out one word, you cut yourself off from your original stage . The result of coming to such a stage is that, when you make effort or do service , you have to labour more and yet receive very little instant fruit. You are not able to become an embodiment of success that you should, and, because of not being an embodiment of success, because you do not attain success, what is the result ? You make a lot of effort, and this is why you become tired as you move along. As your enthusiasm decreases, laziness comes in; and when there is laziness, all its other companions also come. Laziness comes with all its companions; it does not come alone. Just as the Father does not come alone - He is revealed with His children - in the same way, these vices do not come alone; they come with their companions. Therefore, when the vices come into existence, because you disobey many instructions, what does your stage become? You desire one thing or another. By cutting out just one word, neither are you yourself content nor are you able to make others content. Therefore, when you are making effort for self-progress or when you put any plan of service into a practical form, before you make the plan and put it into a practical form, stabilise yourself in your stage of self-respect, and then make plans and put them into a practical form. Do not make plans while letting go of your stage. If you create plans having let go of your stage, what would then happen? There would be no power left in those plans. Without power, what would the impact of those plans be in a practical form?

You do a lot of service , you bring about a lot of expansion, but you let go of the seed stage. By going into expansion, you let go of the essence. Therefore, do not let go of the essence. You do not know how to merge the expansion, that is, how to become an embodiment of the essence. You get caught up with quantity ; you are not able to reveal your quality . Connected with your stage, you have a quantity of thoughts and there is therefore quantity as a result of service , but not quality . In the expansion of a whole tree, only one seed is powerful . It isn’t that one quality seed among the expansion of quantity is equal to the seed form. Do you do service of quality ? By going into expansion, whilst bringing benefit to others, you do not forget to bring benefit to yourself, do you? When you pay greater attention to others, you do not look at the tension within your own self. First of all, pay attention to the tension within your own self, and you will then be able to finish all the different types of tension in the whole world. First of all, look at your own self. Do service of the self first . When you serve yourself, you automatically serve others in that. When you let go of serving the self and start to serve others, you use a lot more time and thoughts. Because of this reason, you are not able to accumulate what you should. Because of not accumulating, you do not have that intoxication or happiness. If you earn now and use it up now, that then becomes something for a temporary period, whereas whatever is accumulated is with you all the time. So, now learn how to accumulate. You must not just accumulate for this one birth, but you have to accumulate for 21 births. If you earn now and consume it now, what will you become in the future? It should not be that you earn it now and you distribute it now. After eating something, you also have to digest it, and then distribute it. If you earn something and instantly distribute it, you will not have any power left in your own self. You will simply have the happiness that you have distributed whatever you received. You have the happiness of donating something, but you do not have the power to merge that within your own self. Together with happiness, you also need to have power. Because of not having power, neither are you able to remain free from obstacles nor are you able to overcome obstacles. Little obstacles create a disturbance in your love. Therefore, you should imbibe the power to accommodate.

Just as the sparkle of happiness is visible on your face, so the sparkle of power should also be visible in the same way. You may be easy-natured and simple, but are you as tolerant to the extent that you are easy-natured and simple? Or, is it that being tolerant is also being easy-natured and simple? Together with being easy-natured and simple, you also need the power to accommodate and the power to tolerate. If you do not have the powers to accommodate and to tolerate, then being easy-natured and simple makes you adopt a very innocent form. In some cases, innocence causes a great loss. So, do not be easy-natured and simple in that way. The Father is also called the Lord of Innocence, but He is not so innocent that He is not able to confront you. Together with being the Lord of Innocence, He is also the Almighty Authority . He is not just the Lord of Innocence. Here, those who are embodiments of power become innocent (naive) by making mistakes and so they are shot by Maya. At the present time, because of your innocence, you are shot by Maya a great deal. Become such an embodiment of power that instead of Maya opposing you, she salutes you so that she is then not able to oppose you. You have to remain very cautious, careful and clever. Check your attitude and the atmosphere. Check your own self to see that no atmosphere is making your attitude weak. No matter what the atmosphere is like, the powerful attitude of the self is able to bring about transformation in the atmosphere. If the atmosphere influences your attitude, then this is innocence (being naive). Do not think: I myself am all right, but I was influenced by the atmosphere; no. No matter how vicious the atmosphere may be, your own attitude should be viceless. Since you say that you are the purifiers, the ones who make impure ones pure, since you can purify souls, can you not change the atmosphere from being impure and make it pure? Those who purify cannot be under the influence of the atmosphere. However, when the atmosphere influences your attitude, then that is a weakness.

Each one of you should think that you have to finish the atmosphere of impurity or weakness with your own powerful attitude. You are the ones who finish this, not the ones who come under its influence. You should not even speak of any impure atmosphere. If you speak about it, then, just as there is the saying that those who witness a crime also become a part of that crime, so, if someone speaks of a weak or impure atmosphere, then that is also a sin, because at that time, you forget the Father. When you forget the Father (Bap), sin (paap) is definitely committed. If you have remembrance of the Father, you cannot commit a sin. Therefore, you should not even speak about it. Since Baba has given you instructions to speak jewels of knowledge, and let no wasteful words emerge from your lips, so to speak of the atmosphere is also wasteful. Wherever there is wastage, there is no awareness of power. When you speak while in the awareness of being powerful, you will not speak wasteful words; you will only speak of the jewels of knowledge. So, check your attitude and words. There are many who think that, because they have asked for forgiveness and repented after having performed some (wrong) action, they have now become free; but this is not so. No matter how much forgiveness someone asks for, once a sinful or wasteful action has been performed, the mark of that is not removed. The mark remains; the register is then not clean. Therefore, do not say: Well, it did happen, but I have asked for forgiveness! Do not adopt this custom and system. Your duty is not to have any thought of sin in your thoughts, attitude or awareness. This is known as being a Brahmin, that is, being pure. If there is any impurity in your attitude, awareness or thoughts, then you cannot stabilise yourself in the stage of a Brahmin. You would then be a Brahmin in name only. Therefore, remain cautious at every step. Together with happiness, also keep the powers with you. If, together with the specialities, you also have weaknesses, then one weakness would finish many specialities. So, now, in order to reveal your specialities, finish your weaknesses. Do you understand?

If, while doing service , you do disservice , then that disservice is visible. No matter how much nectar there may be, if even one drop of poison is mixed into it, all the nectar becomes poison. No matter how much service you do, one little mistake that you make becomes a reason for disservice ; it finishes your service . Therefore, you have to pay a great deal of attention to your own self and to the service you do. First of all, you have to do it, and then tell others to do it. It is easy to say something, but it takes effort to do it. The fruit of effort is very good, whereas the fruit of just speaking is not good. So, first of all, do something and then speak about it. Then see how much service of quality is accomplished. Look at your own quality . Do you understand? Make your attitude and the atmosphere powerful . The birth of you Brahmins is for becoming and also making others; not just for becoming. You have to study in order to teach others. You are world benefactors, are you not? Just as the Father is the Benefactor, you are also His helpers. Therefore, do not think that your attitude is all right, but that the atmosphere made this thing happen. If your attitude is all right but it is not influencing the atmosphere, it means your attitude is not powerful . Anything that is powerful definitely creates an influence on everything around it; it cannot remain hidden. So, in order to recognise your own attitude, check what influence your attitude has on the atmosphere. If the atmosphere appears to be something else, then understand that there is a weakness in your attitude. You should then finish that weakness. Nowadays, what is especially visible in service in all four directions?

You are very clever in playing music, but, by being caught up with the music (saaz), you move away from the meaning of the words (raaz). You have to become those who know all secrets, but instead, you have become those who are caught up with the music. The meaning (significance) and the music should both be equal. If one has great force and the other is incognito, the result also remains incognito. All of you have become very clever in playing music, but you also have to become those who understand the significance of everything. Now, become raazyukt and yogyukt. Achcha.

To those who are raazyukt, yogyukt and yuktiyukt, namaste.