How to Prevent Oneself from Falling into Sinful Habits?

[Ms. Thrylokya asked:- Swami, You always advise us to associate with devotees to attain salvation because we are an average of 5 people we be with and when we be with good devotees, we also become good devotees. Now a days, I happen to go to the office more often and I am being associated with people, who are into non-veg., drinking and smoking, irrespective of gender. I tell them about sin and health issues, but they defend their habits by saying “What is the point of living for a longer time when you are not happy?” I am afraid that I also fall into those habits. Please give me the precautionary measures I can follow.]

Swami replied:- Eating non-vegetarian food is the highest sin and is severely punished by God. Drinking and smoking will reduce the longevity of the person and he/she will lose the precious and rare human birth. Everyone must think “I should live for 100 years with good health so that I can serve God and please God more and more”. The aim of human birth is not to be happy through destructive habits. The aim of human birth is to please God and earn His grace so that you are protected and uplifted both in this world and in the upper worlds. I will give you a wonderful weapon to protect yourself from falling into bad habits. The weapon is ‘hatred and disgust’. God has created every quality with a purpose. You must develop hatred and disgust towards all bad habits. Whenever you see someone smoking or drinking or doing any sinful action, develop more and more hatred towards it. That way, you will never fall into such habits. If you become comfortable watching those habits and if you consider them as normal things, you will soon fall into the trap of those habits. Once you start, it is not easy to come out of those habits. The best way is to prevent yourself from the beginning itself. Therefore, start hating all the sinful habits and develop disgust for them for your own welfare in this world as well as on the spiritual path.

Q. How to escape from the punishments of sins already done?

[Swami, if a devotee has done the sins like eating non-veg. food and participated in illegal lustful activities, but want to escape the punishments, what is the way out?]

Swami replied:- The punishment for eating non-veg. food is that the person must take the birth of the animal eaten by him/her and get killed in the same way the animal got killed in this birth for your meal. The punishment for illegal lust is that one has to go to hell after death and embrace the red-hot-burning-copper statue made in the shape of the illegal lover. These punishments are given by God for the sake of reformation of the soul and not for revenge on the soul. Reformation means that one should never repeat such sins again in future. If a person realizes the sin, repents for the sin and never repeats it again in the rest of his/her life, then God doesn’t give punishments for that sin. Therefore, if a person wants to escape from the punishments of sins, the person must always feel repentance about the past sins done by the person and never repeat the sin until the last breath. If a person had pre-marital lustful affairs before marriage and got married to another person, he/she should never have an extramarital affair and remain loyal to the spouse following justice. If a person remembers one’s past memories of eating non-veg. food or doing any illegal activities, the person must develop the feeling of intense repentance for those past actions. One must always repent about the past sinful actions and strengthen the decision to never repeat them again in the future. Developing the feeling of hatred and disgust towards all sinful actions will protect the soul from falling into the trap of sins. If a soul does not repeat the sins again in the rest of one's life until one’s last breath, then the punishments of those sins will not be given by God to the soul. This divine procedure in God’s administration shows the highest love of God on souls.

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