My hearty Pranams to one and all.
I am really moved emotionally because such an effort has been made by so many
volunteers and especially our Minister of Culture and Tourism who made special
efforts in coming just for this event.
It shows his commitment towards the future of our land, how to inculcate the youth.
I am also grateful to Professor Anantha Duraiappah from UNESCO,
Mr.Abel who is also here representing UNESCO, Keerthi Shetty, our film director Lingusamyji,
we have the sponsors Mr and Mrs Gehi and please forgive me if I omitted any names.
Respected elders,
I shall take two or three points from various speakers, especially Keerthi when she
started saying when she was supposed to do some good acts for five days, and how while
performing those good acts, she felt happy.
Then Professor Anantha Duraiappah added that when such is the case, when we
are all neurologically hardwired to do good things, to become passionate,
to be empathetic, to be kind.
Because such acts, if you look at it from a neurological perspective, it releases
serotonin and oxytocin in our brain.
These are happy hormones giving joy.
So whenever we perform any act of kindness, such a training, as Kishanji also mentioned,
should begin from a very early age.
When I buy a pencil for my granddaughter or in those days when I used to buy crayons and
pencils and coloring books for my children, I would buy a dozen more pencils, dozen more
crayons and dozen more coloring books so that they can distribute them to their classmates.
The training begins very early - the sharing and caring that is the beginning.
From a very tender age we can hardwire their mind.
So, it has become a habit.
Many many centuries ago, millennia ago, when Raja Janaka asked three fundamental
questions to the sage Ashtavakra, “How can I arrive at detachment?
How can I be liberated?
How can I have higher knowledge?” So, in a very simple way, one of the qualities
Ashtavakra described was “Oh great king, please develop one of these qualities”.
He mentioned five but I will mention only one today, because that is the burning topic.
He says, develop kindness and compassion.
If you want to realize God, if you want to detach yourself and you want
to attain higher knowledge, develop these two fundamental qualities.
Now we often talk of Mahatma Gandhi - twice or thrice his name was mentioned here.
He is known for his movement on Nonviolence.
Let us all ponder over what is the difference between nonviolence,
compassion, and kindness.
Is there any difference?
If you look at it in a very subtle way and in a more refined way, nonviolence
means not to hurt anyone through violence.
In our ancient vedantic literature, violence can also be when you don’t speak with your
mother, when you don’t speak with your spouse and keep quiet and mounam [silence].
That is also a kind of violence - not doing things appropriately is also violence;
hurting others emotionally is also violence.
It is not just taking a gun and shooting someone and, of course, that is also brutal.
Anything that can affect any of our pancha koshas [five energy sheaths], annamaya,
manomaya, vignanamaya koshas, all these five koshas through our mental actions
or physical actions – that is violence, hurting anyone and damaging these koshas.
Sometimes you think you are doing a great thing.
You gave a thousand rupees to a laborer or person who did not have a thousand
rupees and if he spends that money wrongly, your intention was good, but
he uses it wrongly, he gets drunk.
All these politicians give ten thousand rupees for getting a vote, it is
nothing new to the awareness of people.
That is also a kind of violence to me.
The next better step is compassion where you feel not only sympathetic, you are not
only going to not hurt somebody else but you have a good feeling in your heart,
daya bhav, karuna bhav [feeling of compassion] in your heart and when your heart melts
to a next level, it becomes kindness.
Act of goodness, act of generosity kicks in and you become kinder.
And why would you become kinder?
Because through meditation when you do realize that there is no
intrinsic difference between my soul and the others, we are the same.
We often talk of spiritual evolution, there are three stages according to my Guruji.
People often talk about Aham Bramham – but that is the lowest state.
When you move to the next level, ‘all is Bramham’ - not only myself but I have
realized that all are Bramham - and the final state where everything is from
Bramham all are from Bramham – this is the final culmination through meditation.
I would also like UNESCO to adopt this SDG – the final one.
You see the various goals that we have, UNESCO also has multiple goals.
One of them is pollution control – air pollution, water pollution, we
have so many types of pollution.
But if you go through all the SDGs, what is the main cause and why are
all these SDGs not working out?
It is because of mental pollution - thought pollution.
A person who pollutes water because he has industries, he will throw his effluent into
a borewell and save money because of greed.
Air pollution similar cause, thought pollution similar cause,
being aggressive similar cause, your mind is not working properly.
And in order to arrive at a regulated mind, which is full of compassion, love, kindness,
when you think of others also to be like yourself, then kindness becomes natural.
You do not have to make an effort.
When somebody is hurt, your body starts hurting.
We feel that pain.
There is no point closing your eyes and meditating and attaining samadhi
if the pain of your mother is not felt.
To me when we recite slokas, “Tvameva mata cha pita twameve, twameve
bandhu…” - we put gurus on high pedestal.
It says ‘Guru – you are my mother’; you want to treat the Guru as if you would treat your
mother or father or a friend or Deva [god].
Now it is very insulting actually when you say such things because have
you really looked after your mother?
Ask yourself honestly, have you respected your father so well?
And you want to resonate similar feelings, sentiments on a person you hardly know.
You bow before Gurus before because you are so greedy, you want something.
It is not going to work.
Gods, they know us very well.
They see through us, why you worship them.
Behind every little worship, there is greed and there is fear.
All religions, they use these two simple instruments; if you do this,
this and this, you will go to heaven, if you don’t do it, you will go to hell.
To put our worship, our puja, our adoration, our reverence to almighty, it must arise
out of love not because you want something.
It must arise because I can’t help, I want to become like that.
So, with such sentiments when we lead our life in a Heartfulness way allowing heart
to express our sentiments, our love then it becomes natural, it becomes Sahaj.
And that is why the path of Heartfulness is also known as
Sahaj Marg because things happen in natural way, we don’t have to make efforts.
We don’t have to convince anybody to look after so and so or do
such and such a favor to someone.
The message is enough.
This year we had run this program on Kindness.
There is no harm in repeating the same topic again because it is very crucial.
At the same time innovate.
Innovations are important for our country.
But what sort of innovations?
Scientific innovations for that, it can increase the yield in the farms,
productivity in the industries.
It can improve the overall lifestyle of every family in India and across the globe.
Students should be encouraged to undertake such research.
If they cannot rather do their research on their own but at least share their
ideas, they can become a think-tank and share those ideas with our seniors
and they can take it to the next level.
So let us all come together, only twenty-five years are left behind, this call, 2047 we
will be completing 100 years of independence.
Our honorable Minister has evoked this idea of 75 hours of service to our people.
Let’s do much more than that, but at least 75 hours.
With prayers to God that may our youth, our elders come together.
Let us honor our elders with reverence, respect and things will flow.
And always meditate, teach meditation to everybody and ask every friend,
every community member to download this app [HeartinTune] and practice it.
Even if you meditate for five minutes, it will change you for good from
inside and it will make you happy.
When you meditate after having done some kind acts, see what happens to
your heart, observe it and next time see how you can improve your services.
When you reflect on what you did, how you did the things that you used in making
another person’s life better, how you can change that also and make it better.
You can reflect on all these when you meditate.
Meditation is not just for remembering God.
Meditation can also be used to reflect on your defects, how can reflect on your good
acts also so that you can improve your acts.
Anyway, you are also very kind in some way, though you have not done anything
you have heard everybody patiently, that is also a kind of kindness.
But we have seen assemblies you know, people going and coming, going and coming making
a lot of noise but to tolerate the speakers sometimes it needs a lot of kindness.
Thank you