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THE WAY OF LIFE
Maharajashri : Why not? Do you think that it is impossible to practise them in your life as grihasthas? Nothing is impossible if you have a taste for it and a spirit of dedication to carry it out. You feel that it is impossible to practise those things in your life because you do not have a strong desire to acquire true knowledge. What kind of taste do you have for amassing wealth ? Throughout the day and night you keep endeavouring to earn money to the point of being totally tired. As you acquire more and more wealth, your happiness also keeps increasing. The happiness of shravaks and shravikas increases when they achieve spiritual progress; not when they achieve materialistic progress. Because you are deeply interested in acquiring wealth, you do not feel that there is anything impossible in that sphere but if you have the same deep interest in knowledge, there will not be anything impossible even in the sphere of knowledge.
Do not imagine that you have attained fulfilment merely because you have heard some discourses. Hearing discourses is the first step. It only gives you a direction. After hearing discourses, you have to engage yourselves in a prolonged spiritual activity in which contemplation is of great importance.
Of course, compared to many other affairs of life, lesser attention has been given to the activity of contemplation. The activity of contemplation begins with beliefs or opinions. Man develops opinions or beliefs either by listening to others or by hearing others or by reading or through countless experiences in life. You come to me and listen to my discourses. You develop some opinions or beliefs and you contemplate on them.
But in order to engage yourself in that kind of wholesome and useful contemplation, you have to discard your natural defects. Your natural defects are accepting those opinions that are convenient to you and rejecting those that are not convenient to you. These defects can cause much harm in the sphere of your contemplation. You must contemplate on both the types of opinions, convenient as well as inconvenient.
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