Mystic Mantra: Manners maketh man

The most important thing for peace and prosperity in this world is positive and virtuous behaviour. Until man’s behaviour is such, that everyone around him is happy, he cannot be happy himself. His mind will forever be perturbed, new thoughts and ideas will keep troubling his mind and he will suffer from some unknown fear.

Shrewdness, show-off, degrading others, display of ego, etc, should not be a part of our behaviour. If we have these vices, people will have negative feelings towards us and such negative vibrations will create painful and sorrowful situations in our lives. And we will spend all our lives struggling to fight and cope with these negative vibes of others. Neither will we be able to live happily in this lifetime, nor will we be at peace after death due to lack of progress in our spiritual journey and path. Those who behave badly suffer with great miseries after death. At the time of death, such people suffer a lot while leaving the body and after death, while waiting to enter into another body form the subtle body experience more than hellish pain.

We must die in such a way that we should not even feel that we have died (painless death). Our soul should leave the body in such a smooth manner that the body should not experience that it became lifeless. And this can happen only when the behaviour of the body was amicable in its lifetime, the mind remained calm at all times, when the body attracted more blessings than curses (negative vibrations) of others, had no expectations or demands from anyone, loved everyone equally but had no attachments nonetheless. A person embodying this kind of behaviour enjoys life as if he’s living in heaven and even after death experiences heavenly peace and bliss.

Once upon a time a monk came wandering into a village. At that time, a dead person was being carried on a bier for the performance of his last rites. A woman standing nearby asked her daughter to find out whether the deceased person went to heaven or hell. The girl came back in 10 minutes and said that he went to heaven. Meanwhile, another bier passed by on the same way and the lady again asked the girl to find out if the deceased went to heaven or hell. The girl found out that he went to hell.

The sadhu was surprised. He thought that he has been meditating since so many years but never knew or never understood who goes where after death but this little girl can find out the same merely in 10 minutes. Seeing the monk confused, the woman said that it was easy to find out who went where after they died.

The sadhu was very much astonished. He asked them how could they find out? The woman replied that they find out by asking the neighbours and relatives of the deceased person about the behaviour he/she displayed in his/her lifetime. If the behaviour included gossiping, fighting unnecessarily, giving others sorrow, getting angry for trivial matters, being irritable, jealous of others’ progress, etc, then we can infer that such a person will go to hell. And in contrast to this, if one’s behaviour is filled with sweetness, he/she is always willing to help others, is serving the sick and needy, praises and worships God, every other person desires to meet him/her or spend some time with him/her and whose absence makes others feel empty or void; such a person goes to heaven.

The sadhu felt embarrassed that he had failed to understand such a small yet most important thing in life. He also realised that there were many shortcomings and areas of improvement in his own behaviour. He thus changed his behaviour that day onwards and started leading a happier life.

So we can extend the kindness and compassion of our being by not judging, not figuring out if someone deserves something or not. Our job is not that, our job is to lift the fallen, restore the broken and heal the hurting.