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| Photo Credit: iStock | Lonnia | Getty Images |
Keep the Slate Clean
Swamiji keeps telling us to keep the
company of good sadhaks – Samarpan is like the Ganges, it has both clean banks
and dirty banks, where you poke your nose depends entirely on you. It is
extremely important to be a part of a good positive collectivity, as this helps
in maintaining or improving your own spiritual state. In matters of inner
exploration, the most important thing to do is to maintain a clean slate.
What does one do with a slate? We write
on it and then if we want to write something else then we have to erase what we
have written earlier, isn’t it! There are two ways by which one can do this.
One is by realising that it is important to have one’s own slate kept clean –
by this we mean no anger and hatred to be carried within, no venomous feelings
against others to be carried forward from one day to the next. Every day, when
we go to sleep, let us learn to clean our slate by leaving all our negative
feelings at the foot of the bed and then get up in the morning fresh as a daisy.
Now, yesterday is history, ask yourself, “Can we start today afresh?”
The second is we carry a lot of garbage
which we acquire as ‘knowledge’ from books, which becomes a massive load on our
heads – this too needs to be cleansed daily. How do we do that? We can listen
to good music or by doing some activity which is selfless – helping others, etc
– so that you are totally absorbed in it and you are not filled with rubbish.
There is a story – once a seeker approached
a swimming instructor to teach him how to swim. The instructor agreed and told
him what to do. The seeker said this was easy and that he could do it. But as
soon as the seeker got into the pool after removing his clothes, the instructor
saw that he was carrying a load of cabbage on his head. The instructor told him
to leave that behind just as he had removed his clothes and left them behind.
The seeker replied that he could not do it as he had always carried the load of
cabbage wherever he went. The instructor then said, “Forget it, if you cannot
put away your load of cabbage, I cannot teach you how to swim!” The student
replied, “I knew you were a useless teacher and cannot teach me. I’ll go and
find a teacher who can teach me with the load of cabbage on my head!”
This is impossible to do and so we need a
daily dose of clearing the cabbage. We need to wipe our slate clean and not
allow any cabbage to grow on our head. Daily cleansing by forgiving and
forgetting, leaving behind all negative incidents of the day, remembering only
the good and positive incidents during the day, will help you keep your slate
clean. The best is to leave both the bad and good behind and start afresh every
morning with a clean slate.
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