We need to become vegetarians by meditative power. If you find it too difficult to follow Swami’s suggestion, then do practice being a vegetarian at least once a week.
Do not serve non-vegetarian food in schools as lunch for children. Such a practice will invite the wrath of Goddess Saraswathi. We go to school for education and the serving of non-vegetarian food in schools at lunch not only retards the cause of education, but it also serves to ruin the minds of young children. This is how and why people develop cranky habits. If you see Brahmins (people capable of self-revelation), their talk will always be pleasant, but when you see others talk, you will find that they are short-tempered.
Even when Brahmins get angry, they will express their anger pleasantly. But when we get angry, we become very short tempered. This difference in behavior is due to the food we eat. We must become good natured. In the times we live in, there is no other option to secure meditative power. Performing religious rituals by spending a lot of money will not help us in any way.
Maintain your houses in a state of constant cleanliness. The same principle applies to the prayer room. Always temper your conversation with love and compassion. There is no problem that cannot be solved with love and compassion.
When we are faced with any problems during our travel to Sabarimala, we chant ‘Swamiye Sharanam Ayyappa’ in order to remove those obstacles.
When travelling in a vehicle, if our vehicle scratches someone else’s vehicle on the road or spills dirt on another vehicle, and the driver looks at us angrily, we must express our apologies with a smiling face. If we can show love and compassion at all times, we can escape from any dark situation. If a wife or a husband commits a mistake, they need to politely apologize instead of quarrelling. For this to happen, we must inculcate patience.
If we want to reach out to God, we must develop all these qualities to become complete. We are not slaves. We must not become slaves of bad habits and neither must we become slaves. We must be effective and never become a slave to the six tastes (sweet, salty, pungent, sour, bitter and astringent) or become a slave to anything. If our tea does not taste sweet, we tend to add more sugar, or if our food is less salty, then we tend to add salt. We then become slaves to these tastes. Live happily with what has been given to you by God.
We may be confronted with different challenges under different conditions at different times. We may find that our house is small, we may find that the workmanship may not come up to our standards, or we could be faced with problems in our workplace.
We must learn to look upon whatever we have as God, show love to that God, and learn to earn what we do not have. Never forget your prayers and never complain about problems.
When we complain about our problems, we become mired in problems.
This article is taken from the book The Global Mission of Sadguru Sri Sharavana Baba