Satyam (Truthfulness)-(Continued)

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Being objective in reporting or understanding an event or a person is very important to being truthful. The mind has a tendency to exaggerate and distort reality according to the colouring of one's own likes & dislikes. Satyam means reporting an event without distorting it or exaggerating it in anyway. Hence, one has to be very careful and thoughtful while talking and use appropriate language to convey the matter in the right sense.

Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa used to lay great emphasis on the practice of Satyam. He declared that truthfulness alone is the real tapasya of the Kali Yuga; that a man who strictly adheres to truth in this age of falsehood need not perform any other austerities. He demonstrated this through his own life and example. Never did he utter a lie and he fulfilled to the letter whatever he uttered, even unconsciously! It is said that his mind had become so pure and established in Satyam that it would alert him to even a tiny deviation from the path of truthfulness.

There is such an incident described in his life. Once, the Paramahamsa expressed a desire to visit the house of one his devotees in Kolkata during a tour. But on the way back he was delayed and could not do so. Late at night, he woke up with a severe pain in his chest and realised that his utterance would turn false if he did not visit the devotee's house that very day itself. So, he rushed at midnight with his nephew to the house of the devotee but discovered that the devotee was fast asleep. Sri Ramakrishna then placed his right foot in the devotee's property as a symbolic gesture of his visit and then returned to Dakshineswar. His mind was then at peace.

May we try and emulate the example of these great souls who've shown us the way to blessedness. May we all make a sincere effort to cultivate the divine qualities mentioned in the Gita.

(Concluded)