All of us want a good life. A good life results from what we do and not what we possess or what happens to us. For having a good life, we should do good, refrain from doing bad or evil to others by thought, word or deed and seek peace. One of the easiest ways to fall or slip from grace of God is gossiping. We are very fond of gossiping. We speak exaggerated truth and false information about others for the sake of enjoyment of the scandals and false excitement. There is a certain satisfaction for most of us to put others down, to spread scandals about others and speak malicious stories. But we do not realise what kind of evil karma we incur when we do so. It is the same rule which never changes – we get what we give. We speak evil of others and we take on their negative karma on us. We carry our own burden of karma and also the karma of those about whom we gossip. The following story warns us of the consequences of speaking evil:
Once, a sage sat in front of his home weaving a basket. He heard someone calling out ‘RamRam’ and walking along the road but could not see him. He asked his sister who was calling out the name of God. His sister replied that it was a miserable brahmin who was living with his own daughter in an immoral manner. The sage said: You are the 100th person to repeat this scandal. He looked out for the brahmin who was passing by and called out to him. He said: Go home in peace, your curse has been lifted! His sister understood that there was story behind the words of her brother and questioned him. So the sage told her the story:
The brahmin who passed by calling ‘RamRam’ was living with his widowed daughter. They were both generous and kind hearted. They would regularly invite sadhus and saints and offer food with love and respect. Their generosity was well known. Once, a sadhu came to their home to visit them. The father and daughter served him well. The sadhu was very pleased with their seva or service and decided to bless them. He looked into them to see their future. He saw a horrifying sight and knew he had to tell the truth to them and help them. He called the brahmin and told him that after his death he would be tortured by a mountain of leeches in hell. On hearing this terrible prediction, the brahmin was shaken and fell at the feet of the sadhu and sought a means of escape this terrible suffering. The sadhu said: Once when you were cooking food, a leech fell from the roof into the cooking pot and died. No one noticed this and the same food was offered by you to a realised sage. There is a rule that whatever is given to a realised sage comes back to us a thousand fold. So there is a mountain of leeches in store for you.
The sadhu gave an antidote to escape the terrible fate in store for the brahmin. He asked him to conduct himself in such a manner with his widowed daughter that all thought ill of them and spoke badly of them. When a hundred people had slandered them, all the bad karma would be distributed over them and the brahmin would be freed from this terrible end. The brahmin behaved accordingly in public and all mistook him and spoke evil of him and his daughter. The sage’s sister was the 100th person who spoke evil of him and by doing so, the curse earned unknowingly was lifted off him.
When we indulge in unwarranted gossip and blame game in fits of anger, we dig our own grave. We take on the bad karma of other person provided he does not shout or scream back in return. When we look back at the various events in our life, we find that we have totalled up a horrifying amount of karma just by bad mouthing other persons. We must learn to speak the truth but speak sweet without anger, hatred and malice. We must overcome the need to put down others. The SitaRam Mantra helps us overcome this disease of the tongue and mind to speak evil of others. Let us pray to the Guru and Sri SitaRam to help us over this terrible sickness and bring forth the light of love, truth and sweetness from within. Really – do we need to add more negative karma to our already heavy burden by speaking ill of others?
