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Suppose a man buys a hollow gourd, making sure it's dry and without a hole. Then he coats the gourd with clay and lets it dry. When it is dry, he coats it again, and thus repeats the process eight times over and over again, and then he puts it gently on the surface of a pond. Do you think that this gourd with its inherent capacity to float will now keep afloat?"
"No, My Lord!” exclaimed the congregation with one voice.
“The gourd,” continued the guru, “even with its inherent capacity to float, could not keep afloat-nay, it sank into the water. Even so, the soul, coated with violence, untruth, dishonesty, intemperance, anger, pride, hypocrisy and greed, becomes heavy, and despite its original virtue to keep afloat, sinks to the bottom."
The listeners were moved in heart and mind by these words of wisdom.'
“But Gautama," Bhagwan went on, “perchance the top layer on the gourd peels off and it becomes a shade lighter, it might not sink so deep; and if one after another, all the layers that weighed it down were peeled off, the gourd would recover its natural tendency to keep afloat. So, too, the Soul. Were it to get rid of the eight vices that encumber it, by acquiring the eight corresponding virtues-nonviolence, truth, honesty, temperance, forgiveness,
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