Religion and Social Values :11.

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1: The Circumstances in Which We Have to Live in the World :


Most of us are only socially related individuals. We have nothing to call our own except that which is bestowed upon us by our social relationships. Family circumstances also come under social relationship; and nothing can be so brittle as social relationship. If that is the stand we are taking to assess ourselves, sorry indeed is our state of affairs.
Let each one take a diary or a notebook in one’s hand. Keep it secret. You need not show it to anybody else. “What is my importance? What have I achieved? I am twenty years of age—thirty, forty, fifty, sixty years of age. What are my achievements in the social field, the vital, artistic, intellectual, scientific and spiritual fields?” Each one of you will get an answer from your own self. That answer is the stand on which you have to take the first step. The first step that you have to take in your ascent towards the perfection that you are aspiring for is the answer that you get to these questions privately received in your bedroom when you are absolutely alone—unseen, unbefriended, and unknown to people.
But you are too busy. You have no time to sit like this. You come tired, exhausted. Who can sit like this? If you are interested in your own welfare, you should not say, “I am tired, fed up, overworked in the factory or office and also in the house. I have come home and will go to bed.” Who will not be interested in one’s own self? If you are really concerned with your welfare, how will you not find time to think of your welfare? How could you be exhausted? You will not be exhausted.
These preliminary remarks may suffice for this day for you all to contemplate as a foundational arrangement that you can make within your own mental field and discover the nature of the pedestal, or the step in the ladder of evolution, on which you are standing, and from which you have to ascend further.
1: The Circumstances in Which We Have to Live in the World : ENDS
NEXT : 2.The Mistake of Religions :  The Need for a Larger Outlook.

 To be continued  ...







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