Hope you have been enjoying this series of articles. It's third day of Paryushan and we believe we all are taking some steps to better our life. Today is Arjava dharma ( Supreme non-deceit ) , the Dharma which epitomizes the Simple living and high thinking. We are pleased to share with you an article based on Pravanchans of Muni Shri Kshamasagarji as captured in the book Guruvaani ( A collection of 10 Pravachans delivered in Daslakshan Parv by Munishri ).
UTTAMA AARJAVA
· Complications in life are a result of Show off and pompousness.
· The cause behind an artificial life is that we want to project ourselves as something that we are not.
Aarjava means straightforwardness in conduct of one’s mind, speech, and body. What is straightforwardness can be understood from this verse.
मन में होय सो वचन उचरिये
वचन होय सो तन सो करिए !
Such a process involves all three – mind, speech and body. What is on the mind should be so good and virtuous that we don’t feel ashamed saying it, we don’t hesitate doing it. This type of virtuousness and straightforwardness of our conscience is called uprightness in conduct.
Let’s give a thought to why do we conduct in a pretentious or treacherous manner with others. There is only one reason – we want to project ourselves as something that we are not. Hence we start the deceitful lifestyle –merely to gain some benefit by hurting others.
If we start cheating and hurting others (physically or otherwise) and start enjoying that then slowly we will lose our credibility and truthfulness. This is what’s happening in the present. We have become too artificial and are involved in lot of show off. As a result we have made our life very complicated/ complex which is not any where near to natural. Take example of a rope. We involve in some unnecessary complications in our lives and then try to correct things throughout our life and possibly involving in more complications. All this is because of our tendency to show off.
Arjava or uprightness has some synonyms – honesty, good hearted, simplicity, innocence, warm-heartedness, and straightforwardness. We should try to introspect and try to practice all these feelings and virtues more often, which we all posses in some degree or other. While practicing these virtues people may try to trick you, cheat you. But remember you need not cheat them in return; just be cautious not to be tricked or cheated.
कबीरा आप ठगाइए, और न ठगिये कोय!
आप ठगाए सुख उपजे, पर ठगिये दुःख होय !
If you are tricked, you may feel hurt for sometime; but still you’ll have the satisfaction that you haven’t cheated anyone (the karmas for which may be carried for many lives).
All of us have heard the story of Baba Bharati. A dacoit had stolen his horse by tricking him as a wounded pilgrim. But what did Baba Bharati say to the dacoit – “Please don’t tell about this incident to anyone otherwise people would stop believing in helping the poor & needy”. Similarly we should maintain our honesty & credibility whether we are in a business, in a market, or in a social-religious place.
If you want to learn straightforwardness then spend some time with children. They have innocent hearts. All of us must have heard of this incident. If we do not want to meet someone at home, we ask little children to tell that person that “Tell him, I am not at home.” But children are really innocent. He’d go and tell that person “Papa says, he is not at home.” What should the child do, he doesn’t know what trickery you are trying to do here. He just says what he understands. Although this might seem to be a losing situation, but the loss is only temporary.
We shouldn’t look at the material gains in the present. If the temporary gain is actually leading to loss of your character, honesty and integrity in the longer term then it’s a bigger loss. To avoid this lifetime loss, it’s probably okay to have trivial/minute losses in the present.
There iss a simple example on simplicity. An old lady was by the street carrying a 'Potli'' on her head. A horse rider passed by her. So she asked him “Son, could you please carry this luggage (Potli) of mine on your horse for some time? I’ll take it from you at the next crossing.”
To this the rider responded “Is that's why I have this horse for? I don’t have time to carry your luggage” and he moved on. But after moving a few meters, the horse rider thought “maybe it’s not a bad idea to carry the old lady’s luggage. She might be carrying some valuables in it. I can simply take that and run away.”
So he went back to the lady and said “I am sorry. I should’ve carried your luggage. Now please let me carry it for you.”
The old lady declined to the rider’s offer of help. Perplexed the rider asked her if anybody said anything to her about him. To this the lady replied “Son, it’s the same feeling which occurred to your mind and mine( The feeling of deceitfulness and distrust).” Actually It’s very easy to pretend to look simple; but it’s very difficult to actually be simple.
And in fact It’s not easy to deceive someone, because ultimately you are deceiving yourself.
One’s own conduct may have some degree of deceit. Our actions, speech and mind may lack full straightforwardness. Avoiding this deceitfulness and incoherence in thoughts, words and deeds, is called Aarjava(non deceit) or uprightness in conduct.
Gurudev Munishri Kshamasagarji maharaj ki jai .
Maitree Samooh extends warm thanks to Yogendra for compiling and translating this article.
Here is the disclaimer which Yogendra wanted add-
"It's tough to translate pravachan of such a great speaker like Munishri without an error or two, where every word is well calculated and is used for some purpose. So should you feel some idea is not perfectly expressed, it should only be attributed to limitations of my knowledge and language."
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