THE DASBODHA BY: SADGURU SHREE SAMARTH RAMDAS ...

whatever that the Saints preach and have unflinching faith in it then you can attain everything in a
flash but you don’t for the simple reason that you don’t believe in their preaching and allow your
mind to waver every now and then. The disciples again raise a query that the mind originally is
pure and peaceful but suddenly it wavers and becomes restless, how to pacify it? How to mould it
so that it can concentrate on the required things?
Shree Samarth says that the mind is liable to be attracted towards
many subjects and objects of desire, these distractions should first be won over, then you carefully
and with all the interest listen to the Saints. Never allow any wastage of time rather make sure that
the available time is spent for the attainment of the ultimate goal. The hypotheses and the theorems
of whatever book or thought you are listening to should be searched for and found out and imbibed
in the mind and intellect. Even if your mind is unable to concentrate you should consistently strive
for it till this inability is got over. Just hearing whatever is said and not imbibing anything is the
sign of being there like a useless stone which isn’t altered until it is hit hard with the purpose of
changing its shape or breaking it. Shree Samarth says that even the stone is better than many of the
humans. You can with a little effort shape a stone according to your will and produce something
beautiful out of it but the same can’t be said of the humans. If a chip is removed from the stone it is
finally removed and doesn’t go and reattach itself to the stone but there is no guarantee that
anything undesirable if removed from a human being may be per force will finally go out of his
system, it is indeed most of the times possible that the undesirable thing will readily come back
with the first opportunity. If someone is told about his vices it is possible that he will leave them
but it is more likely that he will easily fall in their trap once again with the slightest provocation.
The stone remains as such in its given shape but the humans are so much unpredictable that they
are easy prey in their own trap where they are predictably unpredictable. On top of all these is the
fact that most of the stones if used properly yield beautiful sculptures or structures which can’t be
said of many of the humans. Thence it is better to say that a stone of no use is like a human who
doesn’t believe in anything, has no faith in anyone and whose mind is constantly wavering and is
thus unable to even decipher what is good or bad for himself.
It is because of the inability to concentrate upon anything that one
can neither lead the family life properly nor is able to follow spiritualism. Shree Samarth then
enumerates the implications of such a state of mind, any karma is begun in a wrong manner and
thus ends up as such, apprehension becomes the nature, amnesia sets in, life is troublesome like an
enemy, everything accrues losses, Sadhana becomes difficult, worship isn’t done properly, the
cycle of birth and death haunts forever, there is no question of gaining the real knowledge. One is
unable, to take any firm decisions, to fathom any of the preaching leading to loss of spiritual
acumen. Such a man even if sitting seemingly for meditation is in fact wandering all over the
places. His family life is like that of a psychologically affected or a haunted person or like that of a
blind, deaf and dumb one, in short everything that he seems to do is meaningless.
Shree Samarth then says that if such a man is also very idle then God
save him! Everything save everything is plainly impossible for him leave alone spiritual progress. It
reaches a stage where he is unable to do anything because of his entanglement in the web of his
own idleness. Idleness begets idleness and thus increases it beyond imagination. It decreases or
finally takes off all the powers of the mind and the body. The idle with a wavering mind likes to,
sleep all the time, fulfill all the desires and lusts and nullifies any intellectual decisiveness if at all
any is remaining. This invariably leads to leading a life without a cause which is miserable to say
the least from any perspective.