Alter the Harm Done

Naxalites (terrorists) are not merely the people who hold guns and pistols. Anyone who hurts others in thoughts, words and deeds is a naxalite. Three important things that all of you must pay attention to are your thoughts, words and deeds. When there is a thought, the word follows and then the body acts. In the arena of thoughts, never think evil of others. Next is word. Never use harsh words, do not humiliate others and never try to deceive others with your words. If one is killed with a knife or a pistol, they die immediately. But if you hurt a person with words, he or she will be pained till their death. Medicines exist for all external injuries, however no medicine or doctor can heal the wound or injury inflicted through words. Therefore the harm done by words is more dangerous and takes a long time to heal. Spiritual ways alone can alter the harm done by thoughts, words and deeds.

Baba

Those Baba words were like a revelation to me. My father had been in prison because of some story with a young neighbor girl. It was always difficult to talk about it, but not only because of what had happened, but because of the family.  First they didn't tell us what he did as we were considered too young and I just began with school and soon I had to listen to the others in class telling me what he had done, they all knew better than I did. And when he came back it was difficult and it was again not allowed to talk about it, it was something like taboo. So everybody else could talk about it but us. Only when I was much older a teenager I was told what he had done and my mother told me and at the same time warned me if he would try something.

It was like a shock to listen to that and I was awfully scared around him and when he was present alone I always felt uncomfortable.

We had some seemingly close friends, mostly they were the friends of my brother and went in and out our house and my father was supportive to the scouts. On one of those scouts meetings I met the older brother of those neighbors and we began to talk and laugh and it just felt normal, the whole family seemed on a level of friendship.

That went on for about a year and one day he said that if he would have sex with someone he would marry and I was kind of impressed, my father was everything else but faithful to my mother and therefore, I didn't expect that. And he talked about a school teacher and he probably knew her already and one day he came and said that it had deepened and I always had the feeling that he told me indirectly that they had sex and he was gone. From that moment on he didn't knew me anymore and when I saw them I felt like thin air or a child. It was never a normal relationship anymore and when I told my parents the problems began. As we were not allowed to talk about the past or what the father had done, it was not possible to talk about it. As I tried anyhow, I was thrown out of the house three times. I thought they had lost their minds. Everything felt upside down and I felt never home again in that house.

Whenever I tried to talk about it that was not possible. They began to blame me for it and mother found some kind or reason and said I should not.

My parent's house and that environment in that village felt never normal again and when I tried to talk about it, they said I should not and they made fun of it.

It had turned into abuse, but I was the target now. I lived between being homesick and not being able to find my home anymore. When I went home I wanted to leave on the spot because the pain felt that big as I didn't feel home anymore and when I was gone after some time I wanted to go back and I tried again. It was something in me that told me that there must be a way to find my lost home again. And I began to meditate and by inner experience I went to Baba.

We had interview and Baba asked me, 'how do you feel?' and I answered, 'fine Swami' and he said, 'that is not true". Of course, it was not true. I felt okay when I was in his presence, but as soon as I came back I felt not okay anymore, I didn't feel home anywhere. So I felt home with Baba and I would have liked to stay there, but I was not patient enough to stay such a long time away to be able to earn enough money to become a donor. I just worked a few months and I went back to Baba.

In two more interviews he asked how I felt and in the last one I was more careful and said, 'you know Swami' and he said nothing, but after that I knew there was something wrong and I began to question it. In one interview he asked the group, 'why are you here' and nobody gave the right answer and finally he said, 'self-realization' and after that interview I knew that there was something wrong, because I was the one who went for self-realization and it seemed to me as soon as I had mentioned it they began to behave like nuts. I had been thrown out of the house three times and I cannot remember anymore what it was and why. They blamed me for everything and it was hell and I never felt home in that house again. It was that bad, if I was there at that place, I woke up in the midst of the night and had nightmares and I couldn't sleep anymore and I wanted to leave on the spot again, behind to feel the way I felt resulted just in pain.

And Baba was also holding and uprooted tree in his hand and he asked another devotee how I was to whom I belonged and what our relationship was and I had no idea why I had to translate it, but I thought as I usually kept silent that maybe in talking about it I would get an answer, but that was also not so.

It took a long time, it went ahead like that and I was trying to find the answer in vain, when Baba left the body, I was in Prasanthi and he said in the insight that I had been let down by my family and there once I visited the brother with my old mother and who was in the hospital and afterwards it was in the dream that my brother does the worst he can do. I was very worried, but in the meantime I know that it is also not possible to talk with my brothers and I tried but it resulted in abuse and getting insulted and that reflected the father. So I had no idea how bad it was and after a while I didn't talk anymore. I began to keep silent and I began to watch and I tried in that way to get to truth. It was after I read in a book about the pillars of the temple and it was about, 'knowledge, courage, volition, silence'. I kept it in mind and followed the 'insights'. I had no idea where it would lead me, but it had to be more truthful than it had been before.

When I went to my parent's house I didn't talk anymore or only what was necessary and like that I didn't provoke any conflicts, but the conflict was nevertheless there.

And it was still very difficult to understand. But after all by self-enquiry things began to get together.

Whatever he had done, he was not sorry about it, but he based his regime on it and if we said a word, he was once running with a knife behind me and my mother was nowhere, it seems she was attached and she saw only what she wanted. She probably couldn't fight him and she couldn't leave him as well. But in the meantime they are all dead, but after my mother's death there was an avalanche in the dream and it covered everything. Baba explains that 'avalanche' means 'attachment' and once when she spoke about the neighbor there was a precipice in the air between us and precipice is pride, so that happened with the neighborhood and it was the end of the feeling that she was my mother. That is why when I felt the mother in Sai Baba I didn't want to leave anymore, I would have liked to stay there, but probably I had to go back and to get aware of it.

So my father is for sure one of those terrorists, he made terror and he was not interested in what we thought, we couldn't talk and we were not allowed to speak and we were blamed for their issues and in no time my life was gone, it had evaporated into thin air, there was a time I couldn't even remember my youth and the time when I was a kid anymore.

It was gone and I had to find a way to talk about it to get it up into my memory.

It was awful the kind of stories I had to face with them. It was like I couldn't even open my mouth and before I said something, I already got screamed at and I had been thrown of the house for nothing, at least I cannot remember it. When I did the inner child work he was in my dream as a Nazi and the family was in the concentration camp.  

It turned all into abuse and I had no idea how bad it really was, it came up with my younger brother again and it was in the dream as 'abuse'.

After Baba had left the body it said that 'our message' has begun and now it was in the dream and it said that 'he is not interested in my message'. For my feeling it had not much to do with the message, it had more to do with knowing when it is done and when we should stop to put it in question, so the answer is 'abuse'. My mother seemed not like that and she looked always at the good side of it and she didn't see it. I thought that she was brave that she went on and was looking after the business and trying to hold the family together, it was only in the presence of Baba that we realize that everything has turned into Tamas and that it is all different than she would have like it to be. The 'insights' have to be understood.  

Conclusion I grew up in a family of terrorists, only the mother was different, but it was very difficult for her and it said in the insight, if a mother falls, all fall with her.

With the neighbor there was the insight that I expected him to behave like a cancer and he is in fact a scorpion and tried to stich my hand, but he missed it and that is only due to Baba the he after all missed it and sathva always wins. But I am the only one on the spiritual path of my family and therefore, we cannot expect miracles of the others if it is only the spiritual way that can alter the harm done by thoughts, words and deeds.

After my mother's death the avalanche, it began once with a small snowball and it had turned into an avalanche it covered everything, it destroyed everything, nothing left but ice and snow, but I was standing there and saw it and it missed me again by little.

That is how we understand it and get deep into the meaning of Baba's words, we have to think it over and see it in our own life to be able to understand it. When we see the example in our own life, we understand it.

Therefore the harm done by words is more dangerous and takes a long time to heal. Spiritual ways alone can alter the harm done by thoughts, words and deeds.

Listen, think it over and absorb the wisdom. Tapas, spiritual work is first using discrimination, second seeing it in our own life and going on no matter what obstacles are there – until it does make sense. I repeat in purpose the same words always because it is a principle and it is easier to get the principle when we look at it the same way.