If we are inspired by high spiritual standards but fail to live up to them, what should we do?

Transcript

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will guide us to discover that. So we are inspired by some point to live in a particular way but we are not able to live that way.
So why is that? So broadly for everyone there will be some distance between the external and the internal. That means how we act and how we are. Now some people say how you are in private is the real you.
I disagree with that. In how we are in private is the worst you. How you are in public is the best you and the real you is somewhere in between.
Isn’t it? So in private often our demons come out. So private is the worst me comes out. In public I may put on the best me.
So now if I am eating with others I will regulate my eating. But if somebody has given me prasad secretly and I am eating I may eat a lot. So that’s an example of private.
Now where am I? I am somewhere in between. So it is that for us there are many examples like that. In public we will be very careful about whatever sites we visit, how we serve the social media.
But in private, now there is a private mode but we can be in private also. We may visit many more sites which we will not do in public. So the thing is that for all of us this distance is going to be there.
Now this distance it can be seen in four different ways. Broadly the distance is out of discipline. Discipline means say I am craving for grains on Ekadashi but I will not eat grains.
That is discipline. So internally the desire is there but externally I don’t act on the desire. The second is it could be because of culture.
That say in most cultures, at least most eastern cultures, they are quite hierarchical. We respect our elders. So if some elder has done something which has made us very angry, no matter how angry we are we won’t yell at our elder.
That’s culture. Now does that mean that we are being hypocritical and we are angry inside but we are being polite and respectful outside? No, that’s culture. So the internal external difference can also be because of culture.
So now the thing is that this external internal difference that is there, this can be positive because it can lead to purification. Purification means that the internal rises upward gradually. So I don’t want to express my anger and then I want to process my anger and I want to release my anger also.
I don’t want to get angry like that. So that is good. Now at the most negative level it can be hypocrisy.
Now hypocrisy is where we are focusing not on raising the internal but hiding the internal. Our energy is not on rectifying the conditioning but on covering it up. We try to maintain the external facade while we create more and more private facility for ourselves to indulge.
So just having an external internal difference does not lead to hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is when we keep focusing far more energy on maintaining the external and whatever energy we have use it not for rectifying the internal but pandering to the internal, the internal which is bad. Now in between it could be because of helplessness.
So helplessness means what? That we speak something, we want to live in a particular way but internally the conditioning comes up and sometimes it becomes very strong and then for some time we do something wrong. And then after that again, so that means that normally how we are is, we are a good sober person but sometimes there is just a terrible action that happens and we just don’t seem to be able to fight it. So if this is happening then that means that we are not yet strong enough.
I would say helplessness is because of weakness. So our mind also has conditionings and just as we have physical muscles with which we lift weight, like that we also have mental muscles and if our physical muscles are not strong enough to lift heavy weights then we will get crushed by them. Like that or if our mental muscles are not strong enough then certain situations may provoke us too much.
So that’s why we have to be careful of not to put ourselves in certain situations. So does that mean that our inspiration when we got from hearing a particular point that was a false inspiration, that’s fake inspiration? No. We got inspired and that okay, that inspiration may mean I want to get there.
I am determined to get there. But still I may not be there right now and till I get there sometimes I may slip. So keep shanayi shanayi, gradually, step by step.
Keep moving forward and we will get there eventually.