He is a government
official staying in a tenement with his aged mother, wife and his college going
daughter. Thiers is a happy family. Across the road in an apartment stays a
family of a corporate employee living with aged mother, his wife and their college
going daughter. The aged mother is not in high spirits, reason her son doesn’t care
for her. The government official was from his young age; let’s say habitually a
family man taking care of the family. The corporate employee even before his
marriage was not so inclined towards family welfare. His mother thought marriage
would induce responsibility and he might transform himself, but it never
happened. He was habitually a sloppy man.
A few lanes away from
this apartment stand an old age home run by a very successful businessman. The
geriatric shelter home has more than 50 elderly people and provides them all
facilities to keep them comfortable in their last lap of life. The businessman
had come to the city some 10 years back and made good profits in business, with
a conviction to give back to the society he had started the old age home. A
good gesture indeed, but his aged parents back in his village longed to spend
the rest of their life with their only son.
Habits are vital in
helping us do everything in a habitual process. Habit has two faces one being the Vasanas
(Impressions) and the other Samskara (Tendencies). The impressions are the groove that is created in the plane of
consciousness with the needle of past repetitive thought. They tempt us to repeat a particular event over and over again.
Our
mind gets the pattern in the memory and makes the thought and behavior habitual
so that the conscious mind can deal with it without much complication. These
become tendencies which are behavioral
attitudes of action or non-action which in fact label our habit. This is an amazing virtue of mind, but the drawback is
that tendencies can also have a negative hold on the same mind and make them
hard to break. Hence some say habits are hard to die.
Here we can notice
three different approach in terms of looking after the aged parents. The first
and second are habitual, one takes good care of his mother and the other does not.
The tendencies in both are hard to change (though there is no need for the first
guy to change as he is doing in a better cause). Now coming to the businessman,
his thoughts are good but it needs to be channelized to a proper goal,
here the word of advice gets its importance. He has to be reminded about Svadharma
which Sri Krishna told Arjuna in Bhagavad Gita. It is good to take care of
those devoid of filial affection, but it has to start from our threshold.
Krishna did not advice
Duryodhana the moment He understood the past impression were influencing him. He had
told Krishna, “I know what Dharma is but don’t follow, I know what Adharma is but don’t quit.” In case of Arjuna the scenario was different he needed
Sri Krishna to guide him towards the right goal.
Advice can route the good
cause towards the right goal.
Do you agree friends???
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