"Contact Of a Saint Is The Root Of All Happiness..."

                               SATSANGA (Contact of the Saints)


SHRIMADJI said...


Contact of a saint is the root of all happiness. 


By contact with a Saint, one can achieve his best desires for soul's progress. 


Contact with a Saint is the best means to purify our-self. 


What we gain by a few minutes of contact with a Saint, cannot be achieved by many years of bad contacts, on the contrary such bad contact prompts us to incur many sinful deeds, and defiles our soul. 


The general meaning of Satsanga or Saintly contact is the contact with the best person. 


Where there is no pure and clean air, there is the breeding ground of diseases; similarly in the absence of contact with the Saints, the soul's diseases are on the increase. 


As we try to close our nose by cloth from inhaling filthy smell, so it is necessary to keep away from bad contacts. 


Worldly life is also one kind of contact, and it is infinitely bad contact bringing pain and misery to our soul and therefore abandoning it, is highly desirable. Whatever kind of contact not helping one in self-realization is no good contact. 


Satsanga or contact with al Saint always puts us on the right path of self-realization. 


That which shows us the path to liberation is really good friendship. 


To keep our mind solely engaged in reading and thinking about the best religious books is also a Saintly contact. 


Meeting Saintly persons and observing their disciplined life is also a kind of Saintly contact. 


As the dirt and dust of a cloth is washed out by a good detergent or a soap and clean water, so the teachings of religious works and those of Saintly persons in our contact, help us to remove all binding Karmas of our soul so as to purify and liberate it. 


Take it for certain that a contact advocating attachment, enticement to pleasures like music, dance and encouraging sweet or tasty food, howsoever you live in such contact, is definitely a bad contact and it must be avoided at all cost. 


Even one saying gained by Saintly contact, gives us invaluable benefit. 


Therefore philosophers, have principally advised us to avoid all worldly contacts and keeping aside all other thoughts and feelings in our mind should think of our loneliness. 


In this advice praise of contact with Saints and good religious books is included. 


Absolute unity of mind means keeping one's mind in deep meditation or in the study of Yoga. 


But contact of similar thinking persons irrespective of their number is also a kind of loneliness because their behavior has exemplary similarity based on identical feeling and thinking and willing. 


And in this way, the contact of the Saints, all working for same goal or purpose of self-liberation, is also a kind of loneliness; If it is asked that why should the contact of many sense-indulging persons not be called loneliness as they also think of similar thoughts and behavior, our reply is that such persons are not of the same nature. 


They are led away by their different self-interests and they quarrel among themselves and work for cross-purposes inviting unending troubles and worries to all around. 


Where a contact involves selfish interest and illusion or Maya, is not to be regarded as good contact at all. 


Such contacts are never pure or faultless. 


When great monks meet they are pleased with one another, they respect each other, they are free from considerations of love and hate, they are all self contented and they all think of purifying their own souls and help others to do so. 


Also to some extent such Saintly contact is of a person engrossed in religious meditation with minimum movement. 


Joy derived from contact with the Saints is highly praiseworthy. 


A Saintly contact gives best knowledge, clarifies several questions from scriptures, describes or tells stories of knowledge and meditations of various kinds, inspires good reflection on the characters of Saints, releases waves of philosophical thoughts, is a place where there is a discussion of essential principles of good religion with an impartial or non-sectarian point of view, where there is much deliberation on statements about liberation - such saintly contact is very difficult to obtain. 


If it is asked as to the possibility of the presence of a deluded person in saintly contact, here is the answer. 


Where there is illusion and selfishness, it is not a Saintly contact at all. 


The crow in the assembly of swans, if not detected by color or appearance, will be easily distinguished or recognized by its different voice; if it keeps mum, it can be identified by its facial features, but it will not go into darkness. 


Besides what will deluded people engrossed in the life of worldly enjoyments gain by going to the assembly of Saints? 


There in Saintly contact, there will be no talk of eating; possibly they may go to the Saint for a little peace from worldly worries and if one goes there once, he may like to go there frequently for developing a love of a life of religious discipline and it may be for his good; and suppose he does not like the talk of the Saint, he may stop contacting him further. 


As you cannot swim on solid earth, you can never degenerate into bad life by saintly contact. 


This is the wonderful effect of saintly contact. 


Which worldly person with delusion would go to a saint whose contact is faultless and whose behavior is morally exemplary ? 


Rarely any unfortunate and that too is impossible. 


Saintly contact is a supreme beneficial medicine for a troubled soul.... 


(SHRIMAD RAJCHANDRA Mokshmala Lesson 24)