you have reached a certain station in life a place in existence think of where
you were 15 years ago from there you have reached here today what brought you
here it was the choices you kept on making
these choices are the nodal points that determine our life some of these
decisions we make can be reversible some of the decisions cannot be reversed
Jerry Lewis an old comedian he said the biggest gift I received from anybody was
a movie of my marriage day you know in the olden days they would have those
celluloid films so the movie of my marriage day was the biggest gift I
received because when I get fed up and frustrated I play that movie in Reverse
and feel I'm out of it all he realizes it's a decision he made and he can't get
out of it you made decisions regarding your spouse
decisions regarding your carrier whether he'll be an engineer or a doctor or an
accountant or a business person decisions regarding what you will
believe it cetera and that is what brought you here
now the decisions we make will determine where we will be 15 years down the line
every decision will have consequences big or small the interesting thing is
that the power of decision is within us we don't need it from the outside it's
not that somebody has to do something to us to enable us to decide God has
blessed us all with this power of choice how we exercise it is our own discretion
today you could decide I will become a better person will today be that moment
when you make that decision and bring about the transformation that Tulsidas
achieved but is it so simple do you just decide and change yourselves not really
it's not just the decision itself it is the commitment to your decision in other
words it is the energy you bring into that decision there are some wishy-washy
decisions and there are other determined choices somebody told me Swamiji it's
not difficult to give up smoking I give it up every day I give it up in the
morning but then after that I start again and the evening and next morning
again I give it up that is one kind of decision and there are other kinds of
decisions that shape the world you know there was this huge Soviet bloc of
countries the USSR and it's satellites and then there was this one man lek
valensa union leader from poland who decided i will not tolerate this
injustice and he launched a movement that slowly dismantled that soviet bloc
there was the decision by mahatma gandhi when as a lawyer he went to South Africa
to practice he was subjected to racial discrimination and then he decided that
this will not do he made a decision I will not tolerate it and he launched
movement that became so popular it preceded his fame preceded him in India
when he reached India he found mass support again in India he made a
decision that through the principles of SATYA and ahimsa truthfulness and
non-violence we shall achieve freedom that decision was so strong it was
unprecedented in the history of humankind that a country achieved
freedom from the biggest empire in the world through nonviolent means that was
a decision so it's not just a matter of making choices it's a matter of choosing
strongly few decades ago when I was studying the scriptures in the ashram of
Kripalu ji Maharaj I met him in Mumbai and he said you come to my Ostrom I will
teach you and then you go and spread this knowledge so I had never done
public speaking so as a part of the training
I decided to practice public speaking but in the ashram in those days it was a
small ashram with 20 residents there was no public so how you practice speaking
before the public when there is no public I used to practice speaking
before the wall and that would be induced laziness okay I would stop every
five minutes so I went up to my spiritual master and I said Maharaj ji
please assign somebody in the ashram who can sit there and listen to me while I
practice to speak that was an unreasonable demand because everybody
has their duties nobody is free to sit and listen so he told me something which
was very important he said look my son remember this formula always suet comma
bhavati Todd cutter Parvati at cutter poverty Todd karma karoti
karmic rotated of English but deity this is a mantra from the Vedas if you have
an intense desire you will make a firm decision when you make a firm decision
you will put in strong effort and that is how you will become the carelessness
you are experiencing while speaking is not coming from the outside it is coming
from the inside and it doesn't have to be overcome from the outside it has to
be overcome from the inside so we can change if we are committed to it