Unfortunately, we put a stone over the heart and let the mind take over. The mind hijacks the situation. The heart remains the unfortunate witness; even though you like something you are unable to do it because your mind has been influenced by parents and society; they will blackmail you. ‘You have to marry this girl. She will give you so much dowry, she belongs to our caste and our community.’ Why should they insist on that? ‘I will not marry a Muslim boy.’ Why not? If you are in love, truly in love, then why not? What is so wrong with being Muslim? ‘Oh no, they will insist on conversion.’ When you have fallen in love, whatever your partner does, you will end up doing it one day. The relationship is mutual. But if you love a person and your parents convince you to marry someone else, would you ever feel happiness for the rest of your life? You won’t. You will always remember your first love.
Many people suffer because of a wrong decision made by the mind and not the heart. Whenever you are at crossroads, listen to your heart. It is very simple. How? Ask yourself a question and meditate for a few minutes and go to sleep at night. In the morning you will have total clarity about it. If you are still confused, meditate again and ask yourself the question before bedtime and go to sleep. If you get the same answer multiple times, then that is your decision. Suppose you have to tell someone your name, and you say your name is Mr. Johnson, but your name is something else. Your heart will immediately tell you what you are saying is not correct; your name is not Mr. Johnson. When you lie, the heart immediately tells you. But when you say your name correctly, will the heart give you a signal? ‘Congratulations, you have spoken correctly today; you have been very truthful today.’ The heart doesn’t give you any such signals. Let me give you another example. When you are seeing things properly with your eyes or hearing properly with your ears, the heart doesn’t congratulate us for the good sight and the hearing, but when something goes wrong, the eyes start burning and you start hearing other sounds or you don’t hear anything at all. When something is unnatural, the heart will immediately give the signal – don’t do it or go to doctor, and prevention is required.
The heart speaks louder when something is unnatural. You might be looking at a very attractive person, but heart might tell you that he is not the right person for you. Don’t put a stone over your heart and say, ‘I will never find a better person than him. He is so rich, he is handsome.’ But remember that these qualities impress other girls too. I don’t mean that you should marry a penniless person with no personality, but follow your heart. I wish you to share this knowledge of how to make a decision in life with students. And teach them how to meditate, how to do cleaning, how to offer prayers. This will help them find the real source within. You will not have to keep on feeding the information from outside.
The beginning of spiritual life is a very special. It helps us to know the difference between right and wrong, whether something is good for me or bad for me. A person who meditates is able to recognize this immediately. People complain about being riddled with stress, anxiety and depression. Once it gets into us, it becomes a problem. People ask how to control anger. Once the anger starts, it just continues. Once you have stress, it continues. If you give an advice to your spouse when s/he is stressed, s/he will not listen to you. You keep guiding a person under depression, s/he won’t listen to you. It only shows that these are all not easily solvable issues. Thus, you must treat various techniques as vaccinations. Nowadays, we are looking for HIV vaccination just like small pox vaccination, polio vaccination and because of these new medications, people are less affected.
Similarly in the field of spirituality, one can vaccinate oneself with a proper rightful attitude. Make a character of such a high order that before stress kicks in, you are able to avoid it. Avoid a situation where somebody winks at you and you fall in love though you may be married, because these are stressful things. Imagine you are not prepared for certain exams. Once the stress starts, it doesn’t help you, you cannot get out of it. How do you avoid this stress? You can tell children to prepare ahead of time. The best is to avoid certain things. Certain things can get us into anxiety or depression, fearful or a stressful situation. How to avoid this? Listen to your heart. When you have to study and your friend says, ‘Let’s go party somewhere.’ Just listen to your heart. The heart gives you the right guidance. Most people do not have courage to follow their hearts. Inculcate this courage somehow, through inspiration. Give them your real lifetime examples, that under this situation, come what may, follow your heart, the results will always be good.
