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Sunday, Nov 24 2024
TRUTH
- 23 JUNE 2003
My humble pranams at the Lotus
Feet of Swami.
Sai ram Uncles, Aunties, Brothers and Sisters. Today,
I am going to speak on Truth. Truth is the foundation.
Out of the five human values, I believe truth is the
most important. It is the foundation of a good life.
While constructing a house, we first lay the foundation.
The foundation of the house is below the ground, hence
it is not seen, but the whole mansion is built on the
foundation. So the foundation must be strong. The foundation
supports everything else, just like truth.
Learning to speak the truth is the most important first
step. It is the foundation of the mansion of life. Telling
lies hurts and disturbs our mind. We are afraid that
someone will find out what really happened and we would
be caught. Sometimes to hide one lie we have to tell
even more lies. So we start with one small lie and soon
we find ourselves speaking so many more untruths. Another
danger is that we get accustomed to telling lies. We
think there is no harm. If nobody knows the truth, we
may think that we are safe with our lies. But there
are two who always know when we speak an untruth. The
first is God and the second is our own heart. We can
sometimes escape punishment from our parents, even our
teachers will not know, but in our heart our conscience
knows and it will tell us "You told a lie, You
told a lie. It is not right to tell lies." So our
conscience troubles us and makes us both mentally and
physically ill.
It is a must to tell the truth under any circumstances.
If we did something wrong, we should say exactly what,
how and why it happened. Then we should apologise and
commit not to repeat the wrong act again. Let me illustrate
this point by telling you a short story.
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There was once a villager.
He was very stingy and would not share anything
with anyone. He always kept everything to himself.
One day, he lost his purse, which contained two
hundred dollars. He announced that whomever could
find his purse for him will get a hundred dollars
as a reward. Everyone began looking for the purse
but could not find it. A poor farmer found it.
That farmer was very poor but always truthful.
He immediately went to the villager and gave him
back his purse. Now, the villager was very stingy,
he did not want to give the one hundred dollars
reward that he had promised. So he thought of
an excuse and his face brightened up with a smile.
He said to the farmer "Oh
you clever man. You have already taken the reward
I wanted to give you myself. I had three hundred
dollars in my purse and now I am only left with
two hundred." The farmer was angry and said
to the villager "Sir, I have not taken anything
from your purse. If you still do not believe me,
let us go to the Head of the village and tell
him everything." "Well and good"
said the villager.
So they went to the Head
of the village. The Head of the village was a
wise man and knew how stingy the villager was.
He also knew the farmer well and knew that he
would never tell a lie. He listened to both of
them carefully and then asked the villager "Are
you sure your purse contained three hundred dollars?"
The villager looked at his purse and nodded his
head doubtfully. The Head of the village could
see the villager's pale and fearful looking face.
Then he said to the villager, "If you had
three hundred dollars in your purse then this
purse is not yours." With that he took the
purse away from the villager and gave it to the
farmer who was overjoyed. Instead of losing a
hundred dollars, the stingy villager lost two
hundred dollars because he did not speak the truth.
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Brothers and Sisters, from this story we can learn
that we should always speak the truth and never lie.
Jai Sai Ram
Sis Karishma
SSEHV Group 3
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