Original recording of The Mother’s recitations of the Dhammapada and her Explanations in French language
Music by Michel Montecrossa: ‘One With Her’, ‘Forever Love’
25 July 1958
One who speaks untruth goes to Hell like one who, when he has done a thing, says: “I did not do it.” Both, after death, will share the same fate, for these are men of evil.
Though they wear the yellow robe, those who are dissolute and evil-natured, their evil actions will cause them to be reborn in Hell.
It would be better to swallow a red-hot iron ball than to live on alms while leading a dissolute life.
Four punishments await the unscrupulous man who covets the wife of another: shame, troubled sleep, condemnation and Hell.
So he acquires an evil reputation and an evil birth; brief is the pleasure of the anxious pair, heavy the punishment of the law-giver. Let no man therefore seek the wife of another.
Just as Kusa grass cuts the hand if wrongly handled, so also asceticism wrongly understood leads to Niraya.
A duty carelessly fulfilled, a rule wrongly observed and a virtuous life followed out of fear, none of these will bring good results.
If a thing is to be done, do it with zeal. An ascetic with lax habits will stir up the dust (of the passions).
An evil deed is better left undone, for he who does it will be tormented by it. It is better to do a good deed, for he who does it will not have cause to repent it.
As a frontier city is well fortified both within and without, so one should guard oneself, so as not to waste a single moment of wakefulness; for those who lose this opportunity, even if only for a moment, will suffer indeed for it when in Hell.
Those who feel shame when there is no cause for shame, and those who feel no shame when there is cause to be ashamed, these deluded ones are destined to a painful state.
Those who are afraid of what should not be feared, and those who do not fear what is to be feared, these deluded ones are destined to a painful state.
Those who see evil where there is none, and those who do not see it where it is, these deluded ones are destined to a painful state.
Those who recognise evil to be evil, and good to be good, these who have right judgment are bound to enjoy happiness.
Dhammapada
“When you acquire the habit of listening to this inner law, when you obey it, follow it, try more and more to let it guide your life, you create around you an atmosphere of truth and peace and harmony which naturally reacts upon circumstances and forms, so to say, the atmosphere in which you live. When you are a being of justice, truth, harmony, compassion, understanding, of perfect goodwill, this inner attitude, the more sincere and total it is, the more it reacts upon the external circumstances; not that it necessarily diminishes the difficulties of life, but it gives these difficulties a new meaning and that allows you to face them with a new strength and a new wisdom; whereas the man, the human being who follows his impulses, who obeys his desires, who has no time for scruples,who comes to live in complete cynicism, not caring for the effect that his life has upon others or for the more or less harmful consequences of his acts, creates for himself an atmosphere of ugliness, selfishness, conflict and bad will which necessarily acts more and more upon his consciousness and gives a bitterness to his life that in the end becomes a perpetual torment.
To have a glimpse of the Truth, one must take at least one step further in one’s consciousness, enter a little more deeply into one’s being and try to perceive the play of forces behind the appearances and the divine Presence behind the play of forces.”
Mira Alfassa – The Mother
Tracks:
- 25.7.1958 ‘Niraya’
- One With Her
- Forever Love
