Page 21 - All India Magazine Apr-2024

Sincerity

The first thing is not to deceive oneself. One knows one cannot
deceive the Divine; even the cleverest of the Asuras cannot de-
ceive the Divine. But even when one has understood that, one
sees that quite often in one’s life, in the course of the day, one
tries to deceive oneself without even knowing it, spontaneously
and almost automatically. One always gives favourable explana-
tions for all that one does, for one’s words, for one’s acts. That is
what happens first. I am not speaking of obvious things like quarrel-
ling and saying, “It is the other one’s fault”, I am speaking of the
very tiny things of daily life...
This is what I call being sincere. When you are with someone,
if you are sincere, instantaneously your way of reacting should
be to do the right thing, even when you are with someone who
does not do it. Take the most common example of someone who
gets angry: instead of saying things that hurt, you say nothing,
you keep calm and quiet, you do not catch the contagion of the
anger. You have only to look at yourself to see if this is easy.
It is quite an elementary thing, a very small beginning to know
whether you are sincere. And I am not speaking of those who
catch every contagion, even that of coarse joking nor of those
who commit the same stupidity as the others.
I tell you: if you look at yourself with sharp eyes, you will
catch in yourself insincerities by the hundred, even though you
are trying to be sincere in your general attitude. You will see how
difficult it is.
*

To be perfectly sincere it is indispensable not to have any prefer-
ence, any desire, any attraction, any dislike, any sympathy or antip-
athy, any attachment, any repulsion. One must have a total, inte-
gral vision of things, in which everything is in its place and one has

All India Magazine, April 2024 21