‘ Tark … Vitark ‘

Swamiji says …

” Listen to the good that others want to teach you, without getting into an argument.”

” Logon ki achchai ko grahan karo … Bekaar mein tark vitark mat karo !”

” Arguments … We love to get into an argument at the drop of a hat ! Don’t we ? Illogical, senseless debates. We have all the time under the sun to force our point of view on others – but refuse to listen to others with an open mind. Heated discussions – as each of us believes blindly that ‘I am the one who knows it all !’ ‘ I am always right ! ‘ ‘ I don’t have to listen to anyone and heed to anybody’s advice !’ Most of us suffer from this superiority complex, as we simply love our own voice, love listening to it and do not want our set, fixed flow of thoughts to be disturbed by the discordant notes of someone else’s jarring voice counseling us… and the moment we feel threatened that the other person might score a point in the debate – we pretend that we are suffering from impaired hearing, raise our voice to a higher pitch and get into the mode enjoyed by us the most – argumentative , rigid and insanely, foolishly crazy.”

” The barricades of rigidity and stubbornness that we have created in our mind, disallow the entry of views, opinions and beliefs of others. In our rush to drown out the other person’s voice, we do not pause for a second to see the weight and wealth of meaning behind the words being said – but escalate the issue and rebut the wisdom of those educative words callously , with senseless talk. Why is it so difficult for us to understand the crux of the matter at once? Is goodness so difficult to comprehend ? And what should have been understood by us in a few minutes, takes hours to be assimilated by us, as we stubbornly endeavour to prove the other person wrong; uncaring, that we could be causing emotional unrest in the other person’s mind – causing him to doubt his own meaningful words, lose confidence in himself and fall into depression on our account – and he starts feeling ki ‘ Woh hi galat bol raha hai! ‘ But it doesn’t make any difference to us as we are adamant in our resolve – ‘ Unki baat , unki achchai ko grahan nahi karna hai … ‘ and no way will we absorb his goodness !”

“A well intentioned person could try to talk to us about the benefits of living a healthy lifestyle by going to sleep early, waking up early, exercising regularly, devoting some time to yoga, performing ‘Surya Namaskar’ and the necessity of following a routine – but , will we listen to him and follow his advice. No. We have to disagree with him by putting up some kind of defense – lame and weak. ‘Oh! It is not possible for us to wake up early as we are in the habit of sleeping at midnight and waking up late in the morning!’ We play with the words said by the other person , twist and convolute them in such a manner, that we deviate completely from the moot point, and take the conversation to a totally different level by talking about trivial, insignificant issues, whiling away time by indulging in nonsensical chatter that can never benefit anyone in any way … ‘ Hum unki kahi hui baat ko kahaan se kahaan leja teh hain, aur fizool ki bekaar baaton mein samay barbaad karte hain …”

“We should make a determined attempt to douse the first sparks of what could be a senseless, fiery argument – where neither of the parties concerned are willing to withdraw, as that would mean a loss of face for both of them ; and instead of adding fuel to the fire, walk away from discussions where our voice goes unheard or our participation is not acknowledged. But we must remain sharp and alert to all situations wherein we get an opportunity to learn something new, that could transform us and make us embark on the remaining journey of this lifetime with faith in the goodness of everything around us. We must win over people with our calm, controlled, telling silence – which conveys more than verbosity and the endless words said by us in a desperate attempt, to prove, that we are better than the rest.”