![]() “Now this is my understanding of the Master’s intention – so you can take it with a pinch of salt. I have to say – it was a bit different to the usual afternoon function!” “Well as you can well imagine, we were a little surprised and quite reluctant to say anything! But, out of obedience, some boys did go down and they spoke about what irritated them about their friends. Can you imagine? The Master asking disciples to speak about the failings of their friends!” After a deep meditation, the Master asked people to come up and share what annoyed them about their friends. “It reminds me of a story about our Master many years ago. It would be better to outwardly talk to Cahit and express these important issues, rather than nurse an inner grievance.” Also, you have to be very careful – if you carry around this inner resentment, it is very bad for your state of mind and it is not good for Cahit either. “In your situation, maybe the best thing to do is to speak to Cahit and work out some minimum standards of cleanliness and tidiness – especially for shared living areas. After his blessingful inspection, he gave us the grade “All right.” I don’t know if it would have been possible for us boys to get ‘good’, to say nothing of excellent!” The Master came and carefully examined every room – the kitchen, bathroom, our offices – with meticulous attention. ![]() We thought there was literally nothing more we could do. As you can imagine, we worked so hard in making the place immaculate. Once the Master told us in advance he would be coming to expect our workplace – five days notice we had. Our Master really demanded and expected the very highest standards of cleanliness. “However, having said that – if someone else’s lack of cleanliness is affecting your living space, then we should endeavour to improve the situation. You will just meet them in another form and in other people.” If you move around hoping your problems will be solved, they won’t. “It is also worth mentioning that, as a general rule, the Master would say try and make it work with the people who you are living with. Everybody gets fed up with their living companions at some point, so we have to be careful what we wish for!” What I mean is Cahit definitely has a weakness in this area, but you could be living with someone else who is clean and tidy, but has some much more serious problems. Although it may be a bit frustrating to do the lion’s share of the cleaning – it is worthing bearing in mind that – it’s infinitely easier to clean up a house than it is to make someone who is miserable, cheerful. It was like something inside had forced its way out and found expression. Sachin laughed heartily, though Arjun was a little surprised by his own strength of feeling. “So, who does the cleaning in your house?” asked Sachin. Sachin laughed – as if reading between the lines. Only we do seem to have different approaches to cleaning the house.” It has such a good vibration, you can feel the Master’s presence here.” “Sachin, I really love visiting your house. Once he mentioned it in passing to a good friend, Sachin. Yet Cahit’s cheerfulness wasn’t always sufficient compensation for Arjun’s frustration at living with this underlying tension.Īrjun was also annoyed with himself for how much it affected his consciousness – he felt he should have greater equanimity in dealing with the situation he didn’t always deal with it like he would have liked. In many ways, Cahit was an excellent friend – kind, dynamic and cheerful. ![]() As a result, he often found himself cleaning up after his friend, but at the same, he resented having to do it. But, with the evangelism of a recent convert, he wasn’t happy if things were a mess in his own house. Now, rather belatedly, he understood his mother’s perspective and felt a little guilty for his past uncaring attitude. It was a little ironic for Arjun because his mother used to frequently berate him for being messy when he was growing up. Arjun soon realised that in terms of tidiness and cleanliness they had different perspectives. Arjun and Cahit were good friends, but living together presented its own unique challenges.
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