Solving Family Problems

 

Shri Balaji asked: One of my friends told me that he does not have mental peace due to quarrels between his parents and in-laws. Can You kindly give some advice regarding maintaining peace in family affairs and broadly in the society?

Swami replied: If you follow the following simple rules, your family life and your life in society can be very smooth. It will help you focus your attention on the spiritual path, which provides eternal fruit.

Be silent and avoid a quarrel

Whenever there is an issue in the family, do not scold anybody. Even if someone scolds you, do not scold them back. Speaking harshly with others will only worsen the quarrel. Shri Shirdi Sai Baba said “The one who gets scolded must thank the person scolding him because the scolder is clearing the sins of the scolded.” Pointing to a pig, Baba said, “The scolder is comparable to this pig, which cleans the surroundings by eating excrement.” Shri Satya Sai Baba has said “If you keep silent in response to the scoldings of the scolder, the scoldings return to the scolder like unaccepted registered letters that get sent back to the sender”. This step of silence is very important. It is the primary step in bringing peace. By your silence, you are leaving the law in the hands of the omniscient God. He alone can know the truth behind the case. He will certainly punish the sinner at the appropriate time and place.

Avoid biased judgments of people

Everyone must understand that every human being has both merits and defects. Only angels have all merits and only demons have all faults. Human beings are in between angels and demons, having both merits and faults as said in the Gita (Anistamishtam mishram cha...). A human being may exhibit a merit in one context and a fault in another context. Taking just one particular context, you cannot decide that a person is totally meritorious or totally faulty. Our observation about any person is only partial because we are unable to study the person throughout his or her life. Moreover, the person might appear to be of a certain nature externally, but internally he or she might be something else. We are unable to know any person in and out. Based on a situation or incident, whenever we say that a certain person is either good or bad, we have made an error of judgement. You should never conclude that any person is 100% good or 100% bad. The inquiry into the incident must be impartial; without the influence of caste, gender, blood relationships and so on. Such an impartial inquiry can only be done by the omniscient God.

Impartially listen to both sides in a quarrel

In any quarrel, there is invariably the contribution from both parties. It takes two hands to produce a clap. You must be extremely careful and avoid forming your impression about a person based on someone else’s report. You should never be influenced by the report of only one party without hearing the other party’s report. You should always keep your mind neutral till you hear the counter-argument from the other side. Then, you should use your sharp intelligence to analyze and find out the truth. But to arrive at the truth, you must pray to God for His help. The Veda says that one should be impartial till both sides are heard (Aluukshaa dharmakaamaah...). Keeping yourself neutral and impartial till you hear the other side, is called balance of mind. A person who has it is called a Sthitaprajna (Sthirabuddhirasammudho...—Gita).

Reverse the quarrel-causing attitude

The basic cause for a quarrel is the attitude inherent to every human being that “I am 100% correct and the other person is 100% bad.” Bhartruhari has said that if we want to avoid quarrels, we must reverse this attitude (Paraguna paramaanuun parvatiikrutya...). According to him, quarrels take place when you see a trace of your own merit as a hill and a hill of your faults as a trace; similarly, when you see the hill of others’ merit as trace and a trace of others’ faults as a hill. Quarrels will not occur when you reverse this attitude and start seeing a hill of your own merit as a trace and a trace of your fault as a hill; similarly, when you see the trace of others’ merit as a hill and a hill of others’ faults as a trace. Unless we change our attitude in this way and fix this new attitude in our mind constantly, peace is not possible.

Avoid ego, provoking words, threats and revenge

 

Showing your ego, using provoking words and threatening the other person must be totally avoided. If you use any of these in a quarrel, even a beggar will not bend before you. Finally, you alone will end up in a total loss. You must know that even a beggar is protected by God. You should always express peace, kindness and love for everybody. If you do this, even a demon will eventually change and in the end, you will get total benefit. You must know that even in a demon, there is the possibility of change. Whether it is a total loss or a total benefit, the other side will also equally share it with you. Can the loss to others provide even a trace of benefit to you? Never! But if you provide even a trace of benefit to others, it will yield a hill of benefit to you, in due course of time.

In the Mahabharata, Dharmaraja, the eldest of the five Pandava brothers, was terribly cheated and insulted by their evil cousin, Duryodhana. In spite of that, Dharmaraja wanted to avoid a war against Duryodhana. He was prepared to accept just five villages in the place of his due share of half the kingdom. Eventually, due to the ego of Duryodhana, the war did take place and it caused a hill of loss to Duryodhana and his brothers, the Kauravas. Unfortunately, an equal hill of loss was also suffered by Dharmaraja and his brothers. All the sons of the five Pandavaas, were killed. Knowing this possibility of unacceptable damage to both sides, Dharmaraja had wanted to avoid the war at any cost. But his wife, Draupadi wanted revenge and was rigidly bent on having a war. Revenge should never be taken by our hand; it should always be left to God. When a person slaps you once, you slap him back once in revenge. But if you leave the revenge to God instead, God might slap him a hundred times!

Jesus said “The revenge is Mine”. One human being cannot punish another human being for his or her faults since only a faultless person can punish the other. But it is impossible for a faultless human being to exist. The omniscient God knows every human being fully. He knows everyone; not only in this life but also in all their past lives. He knows each one both externally as well as internally. He also knows each and every deed done by all. Hence, God alone can judge any human being perfectly. He alone is eligible to decide the most appropriate punishment for each person and give that punishment to the person. When a prostitute was about to be punished by the public, Jesus told the people that the first person punishing her should be the one who has not committed a single sin! We do not know any person fully because we are not with the person all the time, throughout the person’s life. Besides, we can only know the person externally. Whatever goes on inside the person is unknown to us. Our knowledge is neither full nor deep.

On the other hand, the administration of God is always perfect and no injustice can ever happen in it. There may be some delay in punishing the sinner because God gives some time to the sinner for rectification. If you keep silent during that period, God will compensate your loss. If you are determined to have your revenge, you will also be punished by God without any compensation to you! Had Draupadi kept silent and given up the idea of revenge, God would not only have destroyed evil Kauravas, who refused to change, but He would have also saved the children of Draupadi from their deaths. But Draupadi could not give up her continuous burning attitude of revenge and as a result, she was left childless. Besides, Draupadi was not a hundred percent free of blame. Duryodhana had not cheated the Pāṇḍavās and abused her for no reason. Draupadi had laughed at Duryodhana when he fell in the Mayasabha, the wonderous court of the Pāṇḍavās. She had spoken hurtful words to him. If she had not done that, Duryodhana might not have got the idea of revenge towards Draupadi. Of course, Duryodhana was highly sinful since the magnitude of his revenge was extreme, even for the small sin of Draupadi. Hence, Duryodhana was punished by God severely. Even Dharmaraja was punished by God in that he was forced to leave the kingdom and live in the forest for twelve years. Dharmaraja’s sin was that he should not have accepted the invitation for gambling. Gambling is a sin that is prohibited by the ethical scripture.

Focus on the spiritual path

The analysis and method of arriving at correct conclusions is similar in both pravrutti (worldly life) and nivrutti (spiritual life). Rigid fools who are full of ego are like demons who neither know what is correct in pravrutti nor what is correct in nivrutti (Pravruttimcha Nivruttimcha, Janaa na viduraasuraah —Gita). Such people are always dominated by rajas (ego) and tamas (ignorance). Due to ego, they do not listen to others and due to ignorance, they do not know what is right by themselves. Even God cannot convince such people. Still more dangerous are those who are not actually asleep but are pretending to be asleep. Among the two paths, pravrutti (worldly life) and nivrutti (spiritual life); one should concentrate on nivrutti. The fruit of nivrutti follows the soul forever in all the future births and it leads the soul to the eternal goal. The soul travelling in the main line of nivrutti, should not get disturbed by issues related to pravrutti or worldly life. (Vimuudho Brahmanah pathi —Gita). A student pursuing the main line of studies in an educational institute should not get disturbed by issues related to the hostel-administration. If you have the talent and capacity to simultaneously do well in both, it is good. But if your capacity is limited, then you must confine yourself only to the main line of nivrutti. Even if it initially appears that your pravrutti is not going very well, the divine administration of God will ensure that everything will get rectified in due course of time. All you need is a little patience and the understanding that your knowledge is limited and superficial.