His Holiness Sant Rajinder Singh Ji Maharaj

Message from Sant Rajinder Singh Ji Maharaj

Featured in Highlights Newsletter June 15, 2012 

Last month, America celebrated Memorial Day weekend. It is a time in which those who gave their lives to serve their country are remembered and honored. Most countries in the world have a group of people dedicated to protecting the citizens of their country. Usually, the purpose focuses on using arms to prevent attack from others. Yet, every day each of us must protect ourselves from another sort of threat—that of our mind and ego.

Our true nature is actually our soul, a drop of the Lord. The soul is filled with goodness and noble virtues such as nonviolence, truthfulness, purity, humility, love for all, and selfless service. Unfortunately, our soul is under the influence of our mind and ego, which keep us engaged in activities that are not always noble or divine. The mind and ego become distracted in activities that may keep us engaged in anger, greed, attachment, and selfishness. Such qualities can cause us many problems. If we consider the spiritual meaning of Memorial Day, we will find that it is a reminder to also reflect on the need to protect ourselves from threats that take us toward negative qualities, rather than toward spiritual and godly qualities.

We know that anyone who owns a home or a condominium, or rents an apartment, thinks about the importance of security to protect one’s family and possessions. People take great care to install security systems with alarms to deter intruders from breaking into their abode. Some people have simple systems, while others are hooked up to security companies that monitor the premises. Others install windows and doors that are more secure; some put rods to keep sliding doors from being easily opened. Others have a watchdog to bark when a stranger approaches. People invest their money in a variety of security devices to ensure they are safe and their possessions are not stolen.

Sometimes, despite our best efforts, our premises are still open to intrusion. In this connection, there is a story of a rich businessperson who owned a large estate. He decided to become a property owner and rent some of the rooms to tenants for profit, as he had no need of all those rooms for his family. He soon made a good amount of money from the rent that the tenants paid.

One day a group of thieves wanted to rent a room. He did not know they were thieves. They were well dressed and flashed large bills, so he thought that he could make a lot of money on their rent. He decided to rent them his most beautiful and largest apartment, and he charged them high rent.

The group moved in and lived there for a month. When the next month’s rent was due, the owner came to collect the money.

“We’re sorry,” they told him, “We’re having some financial trouble. We will pay you as soon as we get some money.” Thinking that they were wealthy and they would pay up, he told them they could stay.

Month after month passed, and they did not pay their rent. The property owner was getting agitated, as he felt something was dreadfully wrong. After all, they were wealthy. Why weren’t they paying? After inquiring more thoroughly about these people, he learned he had accidentally rented the apartment to a group of thieves.

He also learned that other tenants were complaining about this group. They told him that they were noisy, they often threw things and broke things in their apartment, they came in at all hours of the night, and they often were drunk. Sometimes they said bad things to the other tenants. These tenants threatened that if something was not done about this wild bunch they would move out.

The owner was at a loss as to what to do. He decided to see his Master and ask for advice. He asked his Master how to handle the situation with these tenants who were not willing to pay rent while at the same time were bothering others in the building.

His Master said, “Here is what you do. You should go to the police department and see if anyone there is in need of a good apartment. You should lower the rent to make it enticing for a police officer to move to your place. Then, when the thieves meet him and learn he is a police officer, they will move out on their own."

The man followed his Master’s advice, and sure enough, when a police officer rented an apartment in his building, the thieves quickly moved out. They never paid the rent, but at least they were gone and the other tenants could live in peace.

This story describes our plight. We want to protect our homes from intruders. But how many of us worry about the intruders that enter our real home, our body and our mind? We have inadvertently allowed some thieves to enter, and they are causing havoc. These are the thieves of anger, greed, attachment, and ego. They have snuck into our very being and are causing chaos within us.

We are so careful about keeping thieves out of our homes. Have we ever taken the same amount of care to keep the thieves of negative qualities from our inner home? They have silently and sneakily crept into our being. They cause us to be angry. They make us tell lies and be deceitful. They incite impure thoughts within us. They make us greedy and selfish. They cause us to be intolerant and filled with hatred towards others. They make us egotistical. The result is that they are robbing us of our true gifts—our spirituality.

Instead of growing spiritually, we are wrapped up in the drama of these negative traits. Our true wealth is our soul and our connection to God within us. We cannot partake of that wealth because our attention is on the riotous activities of these thieves. We want to meditate, but these thieves occupy our thoughts. We want to become ethical people, but these thieves drag us into their never-ending play of insanity. We want to be selfless, but they keep us occupied in thinking of our own needs and wants. They are ruining our peace of mind. We want to be calm, but they cause us to be in a state of turmoil. How can we get rid of these thieves?

The owner’s Master advised him to bring in a police officer. In the presence of the police, the thieves would run away on their own. Who is the police officer who can help rid us of the thieves who have taken possession of our being? The Masters have given us the police officer of meditation. 

Just as on Memorial Day we honor those who protect our country, we can also take care to protect our outer home and possessions, and the real inner home where our soul resides. By engaging in meditation, the thieves that want to rob us of our union with God will fly away and we will reach our spiritual goal of reuniting the soul with God.