How can we avoid making a ruinous mistake like Ravana made?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
overcome lust. Thank you.
As far as Ravana making one mistake that Rohan had, yes, and we may also make mistakes like this. In general, mistakes don’t happen overnight. Even when a mistake happens suddenly, there is a background to that and there is a sequence to that also.
That means, like in the case of Rohan, it was not just one action. He had done many, many actions before that. If we consider say Ajami, it was one mistake.
No, he was just walking along. He had gone for the service of the law, for a dharmic purpose, to get some firewood for the fire, sacrifice. Along that he saw something.
Now, that scene or something, if you could say, that was just unavoidable. It just happened incidentally. And those thoughts also kept replaying in his mind again and again.
And sometimes some stimuli we see, something happens, just provokes us quite a bit. So, then that was, we could say, unavoidable. But after that, what did he do? After that, he came back and not only did he want to associate with that prostitute, but he actually rejected his wife for that purpose.
He rejected his parents for that purpose. That is a brahmana. If a brahmana is rejecting his parents, rejecting his wife, then who will want to call such a brahmana to do some priestly work in their house? Then nobody would call him and he had no other way to earn.
So, he started robbing, stealing. Now, in this case, the first mistake in terms of his feeling was unavoidable. But later on, when he was rejecting his wife, when he was rejecting his parents, surely others would have given him some advice.
This is wrong, you should not do it. His own conscience would have spoken something to him. So, at that time, he could have avoided it.
So, it is many times that one mistake may just be unavoidable. Or rather the first mistake may be unavoidable. Because sometimes circumstances just come in and they pressure us.
Or circumstances lure us in such a way that we get overwhelmed. But when our intentions are weakens, when the desires come and attack us, the desires do not attack us 24 hours a day. They come with sweeping speed, they attack and they make us do something wrong and then they go away after that.
They may come back again. But it is not that intensity of the desire stays all the time. So, after those desires have come and gone, what do we do? Do we try to rectify or do we try to cover up? No, we can try to rectify, we can try to cover up or we can try to justify.
Actually, what I did was not wrong. So, if we see similar things, something similar happened to Sugriva. He had been living in the forest, in exile.
The royal prince used to offer him. Suddenly, he became homeless. He just was deprived.
So, when he came back, he got caught in sensuality. So much so that he forgot that he had to serve Lord Ram. And then Lakshman came and Lakshman was furious to see him engaging in such a rivalry where Ram was in agony in separation from Sita.
But then as soon as Sugriva understood, Oh, it is a big mistake on my part. As soon as he was reminded, he took that reminder and reformed himself. So, broadly speaking, we can try as much as possible to avoid dangerous stimuli, but we cannot.
We do not know in this world from where danger or temptation may come. But after the temptation comes, after the desire wave comes and attacks, when our good sense comes back, what do we do at that time? So, the first mistake may sometimes be unavoidable. But after that, we do a second mistake, third mistake, a fourth mistake.
That is what makes things unconscionable. That makes things too bad, beyond rectification. What happens is, the mind makes us fall down.
And say, for example, I decide I will fast on Ekadasi. I will fast on Nirvichal on Ekadasi. I am not fasting on Nirvichal.
Why what? Let me take food also. I say, it is simple food. Even I am not fasting, let me take opulence also.
And then the whole principle of austerity gets lost. So, what the mind does is, it makes us fall down and then it says, now you have fallen down, now fall down completely. So, that is the time when we can protect ourselves.
That is the time when we can say no. It is like say, I am walking on the street and some water has fallen. So, I slip and fall.
Now, that slip and fall was unavoidable. But if I stay fallen, that is avoidable. So, similarly, for us, sometimes we may slip, sometimes we may fall.
But we can get up. And what will help us to get up is, if we have spiritual association around us. Because that spiritual association will have to come back on track.
We will have to behave in a proper way. And especially if we have very good association, somebody whom we really trust, then we can tell them what happened. We cannot tell that to everyone because people may just spread the word around that is troublesome, unnecessary.
But there is somebody who is very close, whom we can tell them. And we know that they will not reject us because of that. Then, what will happen is, they will guide us.
Oh, you should do like this. You can do this to avoid this situation. You can do this to rectify this.
So, Mantra, she poisoned the mind of KK. KK could have chosen not to hear Mantra. But she heard.
At least what she could have done is, instead of simply acting on Mantra as guidance, she could have consulted someone else. She didn’t do that at all. So, she couldn’t just, again she couldn’t stop hearing Mantra.
She could have at least heard from someone else. Similarly, when our mind is acting like Mantra, telling us, do this, do this, do this. Before we act on it, initially by just doing one thing, we might do.
But before we take matters beyond particular, beyond limits, when our good sense has come back, at that time, you consult someone else. So, spiritual environment itself can bring us back on the right track. And within that, close spiritual association can also help us to rectify what we are doing.
Otherwise, we will simply want to either justify or cover it up. And then that will perpetuate the wrong. What is that you know? Cheat me once, I am a fool.
Cheat me once, shame on me. Cheat me twice, cheat me thrice, sorry, cheat me once, shame on you. You are such a scoundrel that you cheated me.
But cheat me twice, cheat me thrice, then it is shame on me. Why am I letting myself be taken on a ride like that? That means one mistake is wrong, but it is excusable. But repeatedly the same thing is happening again and again and again.
That means I am simply being taken on a ride over there. So, I shouldn’t let others just take me on a ride like that. So, that’s taking that thing around and ourselves also.
When the mind cheats us once, the mind is a rascal, it is cheated. But if I get cheated twice, thrice by the mind and mind is not a rascal, I am a rascal also. Because I am giving in to the mind repeatedly.
So, by having spiritual association, spiritual environment and spiritual association, we can protect ourselves from being carried away by the mind’s bad ideas.