EP22: Gossip & Slander

Commentaries by Vee Jay Attri during the Book Study – Secrets of Karma

Let us begin our study on the Secrets of Karma. We had started Chapter 2, Subtle traps. On the spiritual path, we said there are many traps for a spiritual aspirant. All these traps one has to be aware of. If you are not careful, in no time, you can simply wash out all that you have generated with the years of efforts.

So, one single carelessness can actually bring you down tremendously. You need to be so careful about them. So, one of the most important instruction that we were reading yesterday from Holy Master Kuthumi is about the quality of our speech. So, there are three qualifications for the speech that we talked about yesterday.

The first qualification is “is it true”? This is a very important understanding. To know whether what you know is true, you need to have higher levels of discernment. When somebody is telling something to you, and you simply believe without even thinking for a moment reflects a very poor level of discernment.

So, many at times, when people are telling me something, I check how far the person who is telling is reliable in the first place? Are they really practicing whatever they are supposed to do? How many hours of meditation, how many hours of service that person is doing in a week or a month?

Most importantly, the spiritual practices. If the person is not doing any spiritual practices and simply coming and telling something about somebody, you have to eliminate this information because their understanding will be so poor.

So, you as a spiritual practitioner, the most important quality that you need to exercise every moment is discernment, discernment, discernment! So, the first qualification is “is it true”? Understand it very well. You have to even keep checking what is happening with the social media.

Many at times, at least most of the time if not 100% of the time, the messages that you are receiving on the social media is not the truth, it is manipulated and that is the reason why, check very carefully if what you are listening or you are seeing is the truth.

After having crossed this stage of discernment, the second important instruction is “is it kind”? Yes, it might be true, but then because it is true, you are not going to believe it and you are not going to tell the person about what you heard.

So, the instruction is, when there is a conflict between honesty and being kind, choose kindness. So, there are times when in the interest of the person, you are expected to practice a mature form of honesty and that is exactly where kindness comes into the picture.

So, though it might be true, but it may not be kind. Why? Because the person who is having a specific weakness or limitation or a problem is already into a whirlpool of energies. So many mighty challenges, they are facing one after the other.

Even if the soul wants to become better, the vehicles do not permit, the environment or the conditions do not permit for the person to become better. So, here we exercise loving kindness and that is very important.

It might be true, it might be kind but it might not be helpful, neither to you nor to that person and that is why, the third qualification of the speech is check if it is helpful.

Most of the talk that is happening in gatherings, in parties is absolutely useless communications. If you really hear it, it is so uncomfortable to sit and be a part of this kind of gatherings and that is why, you have to decide whether what you are going to share is of some help to the people.

If it is not, better to preserve your mental resources because every time you have to speak, there is a certain level of mental resources being used. The same mental resources that can be used in productive activities including blessing people, transforming the surrounding energies around the world, you are wasting it in unproductive talks.

So, that is why, the master gives a very important instruction that before you speak, analyze carefully whether these three qualifications are fulfilled. First is check if it is true; second one if is it kind; third is it helpful?

If you are able to follow these important guidelines, nobody can stop you from accomplishing greater spiritual heights. Also, be choosy about what you want to see and what you want to hear. Do not spend time in useless gossips. This is not going to help.

If somebody has time, they should not come and waste your time because your time is so precious. More often you will find people have got plenty of time, they have got nothing meaningful to do in life, whereas you have got so many things to do.

Twenty hours is not sufficient for you. How can you spend time in this kind of mundane talks to the people? Yes, once in a while, out of maintaining a kind of social decorum, you have to be a part of some people for some time but do not spend too much of time into unproductive talks.

This is not going to help you at all. You don’t have to please people. Instead, please God, please the masters whom you serve. That is a better and a prudent way of living. To whatever level you have understood what we are sharing, that is good, but just remember this!

Let us proceed with the discussion.

Lies and White Lies

This is so important to understand, extremely important.

I still remember a very important incident that I witnessed in my own life. I happened to have a bank account in a bank called Syndicate Bank in India. There was a manager, I remember the name of the person very well. Somehow he was actually getting closer to me. What I noticed this fellow was, he was a chronic liar. Every time, he would find an opportunity to distort the truth in some way or the other, he would mislead people many at times.

I had not seen this guy practicing honesty in any level of his life. It is not a judgment, it is a pure observation over years of interaction. So, what I had observed in the life of this person was, there was a very great scandal that was happening in India at that time. There was a very great share market broker by name Harshad Mehta. Suddenly artificially, the stocks were going up like anything and people started selling their houses, everything to invest on the stocks, this Mr. Harshad Mehta was recommending.

Phenomenal amount of money had been invested in stocks, thinking that all these stocks are going to multiply. So, our friend, this guy, he happened to be one of them, he sold his house. He sold everything possible and started investing. Then after a few days, the stock market crashed to such a level that practically this guy was on the street.

This is exactly what is implied here. When you keep distorting truth, at a very crucial time, truth will be distorted to you. You have to be so careful about it. So, sometimes you will find people making extremely wrong decisions based on the facts that are provided to them.

In reality, they are not facts. They are there to misguide them. So why it happens? Because you had the karma of distorting the truth and therefore, at a very crucial time, truth will be distorted and you will believe the distorted information. That is a very important point.

So that is what has been mentioned here. So, this particular story has been witnessed by the author. Since lies distort the truth, as a karmic consequence, your perception of truth will be distorted and sometimes, you will be misled by wrong information at a critical time.

You even get blocked from learning higher spiritual truths as a result of habitual lies.

A habitual liar can never progress spiritually because when you distort truth, truth will not be revealed to you. For now, the most important prerequisite for spiritual development is honesty, honesty, honesty. Ruthless honesty, most importantly with yourself. This is a quality that you have to develop.

However, there are times when kindness can supersede honesty and you may have to practice a mature honesty.

You may for example, have to say a white lie and falsely compliment a woman who wishes to know how she is looking with her new hairstyle!

Here the point is very clear, right? When somebody is asking certain things, it does not matter, you don’t have to practice honesty to give pain to that person. So, there are certain white lies that are absolutely permissible.

Honesty without discrimination may at times cause harm to others. So, here, more than honesty, what you need to practice is kindness. What you need to practice is mercy towards the person.

Further reading, Secrets of Karma, Page 43