1: The Arduous Task of Self-Analysis : 2.

Man has not succeeded in demonstrating his humanity in his outward life, because inwardly he has not been a human being. Anthropologically and sociologically he has been a human being, no doubt, but psychologically he has been a cutthroat at the root. When a man is cornered from all sides and is not allowed any avenue of self-expression, when he has blocked all channels of action and thinking from every side, he demonstrates his essential nature, which is not humanity but brutality. He chose the beast that he is while proclaiming to be a humanitarian genius, a religious devotee, a spiritual hero. It all goes to dust and wind in one second when he is tested with the touchstone of the trouble through which the world passes and to which he himself is subject.


Let each man touch his own heart and look within himself. Is he a religious man? Is he a devotee of God? Is he a lover of his own brother in his own family, really speaking? Can each member of the family say that he is really a friend of his own brother ultimately, to the point of doom, under every circumstance? Can any person be a friend of any other under all circumstances, unconditionally, without any limitation whatsoever? Can you sincerely, honestly feel that you can be a friend of another unconditionally? You should be careful in giving the answer. You would not be able to find many who have been unconditional friends. Conditionally we are sons of fathers, obedient to parents; conditionally we have been disciples of Gurus; conditionally we have been well-wishers of mankind and lovers of our own neighbour; and under conditions we have also been devotees of God. Everything has been conditioned. Very pitiable is our fate.


It is no use floating on the surface of a self-complacency, vanity and egoism that parades as devotion in these few days of Sadhana Week because each one of us knows how we behave in the railway station, in the taxi stand, in the vegetable market, in the court and the police station, in the parliament and in the meeting of the directors of a company. How we behave with one another is a thing which does not require any commentary. Are we religious and spiritual? Are we devotees? We are everything but that.


So when we undertake this arduous task of self-analysis, we are undertaking an analysis of the whole circumstance of life in which we are involved. And if God is omnipresent according to the proclamations of the scriptures and according to what you have heard from people, an analysis of the values that are spiritual would be an all-comprehensive analysis of life’s circumstances. We are knit into the web of life warp and woof so that everything that we touch happens to be a world circumstance. And a self-analysis is a world analysis, simultaneously. We should not be carried away by the motion of the people around us who have only observation of the appearances that we put on and the adjustments that we make in our life, but cannot see our heart, feelings tensions and proclivities.

To be continued   ...