acts. Respect everyone, always imbibe the
good things about them in life.All good qualities that you see in the world
today come from the Divine. And bad
qualities or habits come from an ignorance of
the Divine. When one’s vision gets muddied
and blurred due to wrong knowledge and
ignorance, then one does such wrong things.
So, understand this and just relax.I know there is one more question in all your
minds here. “Is it one’s destiny or one’s karma
that plays a part in the lives of people?” How
many of you here have this question? (Many
in the audience raise their hands).Life is a combination of Destiny and Self-
effort. I will explain this with a simple
example. After a certain age, does your
height increase? Whether it is five feet or six
feet, once you have attained that height, it
does not grow any more. So, your height
is your Destiny. And your weight is your
Self-effort. Whether you wish to increase
your weight by 10 kilos or reduce it by 20
kilos, it is up to you. If you think that you
cannot increase or decrease your weight,
then that is not the right thinking. You can
increase or decrease your weight, and that is
the freewill you have.Destiny is knowing that you cannot increase
your height beyond what it is after a certain
age. See, if it is raining outside, then that is
destiny. Whether to get wet or not is your
choice. It is your Self-effort. If you take an
umbrella and walk, then you will not get wet
in the rain, otherwise you will get drenched.
Being on the spiritual path means to
enhance both your Destiny and the
quality of your Self-effort.must be some people having such a kind
of thinking even today. What can one do? If
Ravana had not disguised himself as saint,
then there would be no Ramayana today.
See, there are some miscreants in every
sphere of society. These few wrongdoers
bring dishonour to the entire field because
of their wrong deeds.
There were a few doctors reported in the news
who were stealing kidneys from the patients
they operated on and making a fortune by
doing so. But, does this mean that you keep
thinking about this and become so fearful
that you stop visiting doctors altogether?
Will you be able to stay healthy?
In the same way, there are some shopkeepers
who adulterate food grains and sugar to
make profit. They mix adulterants in milk
and butter. But, if you shut down all the
shops because of this, then how will things
work in society? If we keep doubting and
mistrusting everything that happens in life,
that will not help. When you see some people
who do such wrong deeds, you should feel
compassion and sympathy for them. You
should understand that they have strayed
away from the right path.
Sometimes honest and innocent people also
get falsely blamed and accused in criminal
cases. For example, the Shankaracharya of
the Kanchi Math was accused wrongly in a
criminal case. The legal trials went on for
nine years in the courts and after a long
period of 3500 hours, he was found to be
innocent. But the media covered the news of
his release and innocence for eight minutes
only. Such unfortunate things do happen
to good people, and you should consider it
as their penance. You should take a lesson
from these events and not indulge in wrong