The value of your word

|| Sri Ramakrishna Sharanam||

My sincere pranams to all.  The current chill factor has somewhat made people hermits, extracting the high energy that normally prevails through the day. Even the vociferous birds seem to have taken a vacation. With that much less encouragement to leave the habitat the day is normally configured around reading the Sunday paper or watching movies.

But the thrill and excitement in reading the paper has fizzled out to a large extent because at the mere gaze one is able to deduce the central issues raised is nothing but corruption, murder and greed. As a matter of fact all other news has to settle around that.

It makes me sit in awe sometimes as to how this world we live in is so full of negatives but yet people live in it without batting an eyelid.

I wonder back in time to gather a sense of how things were when great giants of morality walked the earth. Did you ever wonder why with so much poverty in certain countries, why don’t the governments just print extra money to feed the poor, yes exactly for the money to have any value it must be balanced against something which in most cases is the amount of gold a country possesses.

In the exact same way the, the words spoken of a person has immense value if it is balanced or weighed against something. What is this something? Here I would like to reflect on two personalities during the Mahabharat age.  Two particular incidents come to mind. King Yudhisthira the eldest of the Pandava brothers was also referred to as Dharma Raj( King of Righteousness) because he was a man of his word. He never spoke a lie, So much so that when he gave his word that his wife would be disrobed if he lost a wager in a game he never back tracked on his word.

The other incident is that of Vasudeva , the father of Shri Krishna, he was also known never to speak a lie. When Kamsa was to kill his wife who will bear the child that will destroy him; he spared her life on Vasudevs word to bring every child born to him to be killed.

If we compare these incidents to today, we find that today every agreement has to be reduced into writing because nobody’s word has any integrity or value. Testament to this will be the huge backlogs of cases in the courts.

Even friendships suffer the fate of degradation when the promise of loyalty and unwavering support is diluted at the face of adversity.

In essence it really boils down to selfishness. When we don’t get what we want we resort to tactfully forgetting our duty to honour our word.

So going back to our question, as to what is this something? , That we must weight our word against. It is nothing but character, the DNA of a spiritual being. When one is raised in an environment of dharma (righteousness) rooted firmly in devotion and love for god.  Then his life becomes the collateral for all his actions. Every word that he speaks is like from god itself and  gains much respect and adoration from the people.

Swami Vivekananda said, that only cowards and those who are weak tell lies. The brave are always moral.

 Lies have become so natural that so often we hear in the midst of the conversation, the expression, “don’t lie”.  Are we so weak that we cannot burden the truth that we hide behind lies like cowards? Be bold as we are children of god. Speak the truth no matter how difficult you may feel it is, because truth is the essence and core of your being. Be proud of it!!!!!

Let us from today try to give value to our words and lives. This will help bring peace and harmony in the world.

This is my sincere prayer.

Aum