Sadhaka

Every person is apt to commit mistakes, without being aware of it. However bright the fire or light, some smoke will emanate from it. So also, whatever good deed a man might do, there will be mixed with it a minute trace of evil. But efforts should be made to ensure that the evil is minimized, that the good is more and bad, less. Of course, in the present atmosphere, you may not succeed in the very first attempt. You must carefully think over the consequences of whatever you do, talk, or execute. In whatever way you want others to honor you, or to love you, or to behave with you, in the same way you should first behave with others and love and honor them. Then only will those honor you. Instead, without yourself honoring and loving others, if you complain that they are not treating you properly, it is surely a wrong conclusion. Besides, if only those who advise others about, “Which principles are right, which are true and good, which conduct is best, etc.?” themselves follow the advice they give, there would then be no need for giving that advice at all. They will learn the lesson simply by observing their actual behavior. On the other hand, if Vedanta is spoken parrot-like to others, without any attempt to put it into practice in one’s own conduct, it is not only deceiving others; it is even worse. It is deceiving oneself. Therefore, you must be as you want others to be. It is not the nature of a sadhaka or bhakta to search for faults in others and hide one’s own. If your faults are pointed out to you by anyone, do not argue and try to prove that it is right, or do not bear a grudge against him for it. Reason out within yourself how it is a fault and set right your own behavior. Instead, rationalizing it for your own satisfaction or wreaking vengeance on the person who pointed it out, these are certainly not the traits of a sadhaka.

Prema Vahini, “The equipment that a Sadhaka should collect”

It is necessary to analyze and discriminate every act of man, for the spirit of renunciation is born out of such analysis. Without it, renunciation is difficult to get. Miserliness is like the behavior of a dog it has to be transformed. Anger is enemy no.1 of the sadhaka, it is like spittle and has to be treated as such. And untruth? It is even more disgusting. Through untruth, the vital powers of all are destroyed. It should be treated as scavenging itself. Theft ruins life. It makes the priceless human life cheaper than a pie. It is like rotten foul-smelling flesh. Moderate food, moderate sleep, prema [love], and fortitude these will help in the upkeep of the health of both body and mind. Whoever he may be, if he gives no room for dispiritedness, if he has no fear at all, and if he remembers the Lord with unshaken faith and without any ulterior motive, all suffering and sorrow will fall away from him…With a pure antahkarana (inner consciousness), uninterruptedly (whatever one may be doing) contemplating on God, feeling that everything is the Lord’s creation and therefore One, unattached to sense-objects, embracing all in equal love, dedicated to true speech, this is, indeed, the characteristic of bhakti [devotion].

Prema Vahini, “The harvest of a Sadhaka”