Discourses on "The Commentary on the Ten Commandments" of the system of Sri Ramchandra's Rajayoga - Commandment -7

The seventh commandment instructs that one should not be revengeful for wrongs done to one by others. One should treat the acts of such kind emanating from any one as helps towards purification.

This is about the most difficult of the commandments to follow or even to think of. In a world of action and reaction of forces said to be opposed to one another as godly and ungodly, good and evil, it is really necessary to think afresh on this problem and commandment.

Shri Ram Chandraji reminds that the entire philosophy behind this Abhyas or Sadhana has to be considered. The original condition is one of Santhi or peace and it is coolness itself. Earlier it has been shown that all activity has increased heat and light and consciousness and finally misery has resulted from this excessive heat. These radiations from the Centre are thus the natural processes which however, tend to give up heat and return to the original state or coolness. We know that we all seek the night and also coolness (of course, not in excess). We all seek sleep as the period of rest or restfulness. The periods of meditations are for the sake of returning to this coolness or Anantha or Santhi. There is a law called the Second Law of Thermo_dynamaics, which says that entropy tends to a maximum (entropy being the state of rest of non-motion or non-heat). The whole world is working according to this law. This will mean that even the sun is finally to become without heat; of course if nothing intervenes to lift it up from that condition. All of us seek rest normally unless activity is needed for the preservation of the body or system. If nothing intervenes, entropy will certainly tend to become absolute or maximum. We know also that when a particular place is rendered very hot, due to the lowering of pressure, air from neighbouring places or surroundings begins to rush in to increase the pressure and relieves the depression and the heat. Even so when it passes to the place of depression through the extreme urgency of the condition, there happen typhoons and gales of velocity which indeed do uproot the trees and damage buildings. Similarly, when the individual's misery or heat increase there is set up naturally a force to relieve the same, and in that process there happens damage too. Man thus finds that instead of lessening his misery more has been added. He becomes agitated against the relieving force which seeks to lower the misery and the heat (tapa). He endows that force with animosity and enmity. He entertains hatred towards it. He opposes that force with all his might and in the process brings into being more heat and misery. This leads to a cycle of actions and reactions. An intelligent man should see that an inimical force is but a friendly force that is removing the obstructions or the heat and misery. It was said that if a man strikes you on the right check show him the left, for by that process he removes the obstruction to his own progress and helps the removal which was shown to be necessary by the so called inimical force. Thus it was also said that 'in humiliation lies supreme glory'.

Revenge is natural to the order of ignorance. What is produced by it is greater misery. Most probably, it may even be said that our revenge is the cause of building up of the so-called Suksmasarira for the sake of transmigration from body to body, not so much to evolve but to take vengeance against our foes or enemies. The desire to take vengeance is certainly a major element in our misery-cycle, so much so, if one does not wish to be caught up in this cycle of vengeance from life to life one must renounce vengeance. One should develop love for one's enemies, for an enemy is a friend estranged, because of his function of removing our impediments. It is true that such an estranged friend is not aware of the good role he is playing: he may even become wicked and ferocious and murderous too: but the new point of view of spirituality will disarm all vengefulness on our part. The Gandhian view of nonviolence is capable of being considered as the expression of this power of love to overcome the vengefulness, but it can be seen that so long as the aim to convert the enemy is dominant it does not really mean that love that seeks to thank the evil-doer for the good turn he has done, the surgical operation that he has performed in removing our impediments which we could not ourselves remove. If we think that all this world is indeed governed by One Supreme Godhead and that nothing happens without His Will and according to His law then we shall thank God for all things that occur. This is the meaning of the Sloka of Sri Krishna: Sukha dukhe samekrtva, labhalabhau jayajayau ... -- (making equal both pain and pleasure, gain and loss, victory and defeat ....) one should seek to attain the Sthita Prajna state - the state of well-established Prajna - deep peace.