by Sri Bmal Mohanty
VOL No. 25
Jan. 2003

RELATIONSHIPS IN THE CONTEXT OF SPIRITUAL GROWTH.

"Based on the lectures by Sri Bimal Mohanty"

It is strange that in today's world we think that our total responsibility as a parent, friend or brother stops once we have provided enough material benefits to our relations. The fact that we have a greater responsibility beyond these worldly duties is not understood today. It has even become a joke when we talk about it. Do we realise that by doing so we are actually harming our relationship and retarding the progress of the other?

Today a father will express the depth of his affections to his child by fulfilling as much as possible every material want of the child. A motor car, expensive items of pleasure, more than the normal comfort has become a symbol of parental care. What happens as a result? The child's unconditioned mind slowly gets more and more trapped in the grips of the python or the nagapasha of material greed. We in our ignorance, actually put obstacles in his path of liberation. Ever engrossed in the pleasures of life, today no one learns things like sama ,dama or niyama. The fires of desire - having been constantly fuelled, burn unsatiated. Instead of helping the relation by virtue of being a relation ourselves we retard his upward progress.

It is pathetic that in our ignorance, we have become obstacles in the path of evolution of someone whom we profess as our own love. A father fails a son, a wife fails a husband, a friend fails a friend and in the process we have failed to ourselves. We have succeeded in negating a wonderful scheme that was designed for our benefit.

When two created entities are bound by the ties of a relationship, it is for each other's need to rise above. To be a true accomplice in the path of upward development and spiritual progress is a true relationship.

If you are a parent, be an accomplice to your children.

If you are a friend, be an accomplice to your friend.

If you are a child be an accomplice to your parents.

If you are a teacher, be an accomplice to your student.

Do not be an obstacle to any one's spiritual progress.

By this we indeed ensure our own development.

That is spiritualism in practice.

( This month's issue of AHWAN has been sponsored through the benevolence of Sri Anupam and Srimati Dipti of Gurgaon celebrating their marriage anniversary. God bless them )