Page 31 - All India Magazine Apr-2024

Goodness

I have very often heard people saying, “Oh! now that I am trying to
be good, everybody seems to be bad to me!” But this is precisely
to teach you that one should not be good with an interested mo-
tive, one should not be good so that others will be good to you
— one must be good for the sake of being good.
It is always the same lesson: one must do as well as one can,
the best one can, but without expecting a result, without doing
it with a view to the result. Just this attitude, to expect a reward
for a good action — to become good because one thinks that this
will make life easier — takes away all value from the good action.
You must be good for the love of goodness, you must be just
for the love of justice, you must be pure for the love of purity and
you must be disinterested for the love of disinterestedness; then
you are sure to advance on the way.
*
A good deed is sweeter to the heart than a sweet in the mouth.
A day spent without doing a good deed is a day without a soul.
*
One should keep goodwill and love constantly in his heart and let
them pour out upon all with tranquillity and with equanimity.
*
A tireless benevolence, clear-seeing and
comprehensive, free from all personal reac-
tion, is the best way to love God and serve
Him upon earth. The Mother
CWM 3: 264-65; 15: 225; 14: 186-87

Flower: Benevolence
(Spiritual significance of the flower given by the Mother)
Botanical name: Reseda odorata

All India Magazine, April 2024 31