Here are the demerits that must be given up if one is looking for peace, happiness, and prosperity. If not, doom will be certain. Even if someone has current prosperity due to previous good karma, it will be destroyed. If you do not give up these, you will be inflicted with pain, sorrow and grief and live a very miserable life, and your doom will be inevitable.
1. Do Not Praise Yourself
Never praise or glorify yourself with your own mouth; otherwise, your good deeds will be lost. Your intellect will become corrupt and lead to your fall. You will not be able to make the correct decisions. Intelligence is the charioteer, and if our driver is dumb, accidents will happen.
2. Give Up Greed
Be righteous, and use whatever you receive through the righteous means to maintain yourself. You will be happy and healthy, and your family will have a lot of happiness and peace. You might live a simple life, but it will be long-lasting. The Goddess of fortune will also be in your home for a long time. If you are greedy, you will resort to violence, cheating, adultery, stealing, and keep feeling that more money should come. This condition is like a halogen light; it shines bright for some time and then fuses. Greed will leave you in complete darkness. Your body, children and family will burn day in and out mentally and from within.
3. Tolerate If Someone Insults You
If you get insulted, you must tolerate it; it destroys your sins. If you get angry and act, it leads to your fall. Your heart will burn, and suffering will come. If you tolerate, your tolerance will become fire for the other person. You need not punish him; his own actions will punish him. You stay quiet, listen to spiritual discourses and stay peaceful.
4. Give Up Anger
Stop being angry all the time. Do not meditate on grudges. It burns you from within. One must learn to control themselves. If you constantly get angry, your behaviour will worsen, and your pious activities and life will be destroyed.
5. Protect Those Who Take Your Shelter
If anyone has come to you for help, any animal, bird or human, you must protect it. If you kill them yourself or get them killed, it will destroy your good karma, and it will become the cause of bad fortune.
6. Stop Performing Sins With Excitement
For those who perform bad activities with great excitement, their downfall is certain. Their pious activities will be destroyed. Pain and turmoil will prevail. We cannot do whatever we want. To perform sinful actions without fear and with excitement are such indications of certain misfortune.
7. Do Not Think About Sex All The Time
Stop seeing, hearing and meditating on filthy content. Do not look at women with lusty eyes; this will certainly destroy your piety and lead to your fall. Duryodhan and Ravan were not ordinary men but were destroyed by this shortcoming. God has allowed for sex under the rules of the scriptures. You can get married, have children, and do it except for on auspicious days. Moderation is needed. And you must not meditate upon it constantly; it will corrupt you. Thoughts should be of God, of your service, of your duties. If you meditate upon sense objects, you will burn from within and not know what to do or not to do; your intelligence becomes blind.
8. Give Up The Feeling Of Superiority
Do not behave as if you are great and others are inferior. Everyone is a part of God. Have the same behaviour with everyone. Don’t look at others with a lowly mindset. Give them the level of love, affection and respect you want for yourself, or you will be the target of everyone’s criticism.
9. Do Not Expect Respect From Others
Why do you think you are special and should be respected? This body is the same for everyone: old age weakens us, life force weakens, good deeds diminish, and life ends someday. Expecting respect from others is a low propensity. It is better to respect everyone and expect none in return.
10. Promising A Donation and Not Honouring it
It is wrong to promise a donation and then decline. It is also wrong to feel regret after donating. An example is when you donate and later tell people, “I don’t know what happened to me; I donated in the heat of the moment”. This regret will destroy your pious deeds.
11. Don’t Be A Miser
A miser neither makes his family happy nor his own self happy. He puts every penny into the bank and then dies. The actual use of the money is to make your family prosperous. Give a small part of it to someone you will not get anything in return – an animal, a bird or someone in need. Help someone if they are sick and can’t afford the medicine. Help someone from whom you cannot get anything back. That wealth is blessed. The money of a miserly person is of no use. They just waste their life meditating about that money, collecting it, and then dying to protect it.
12. Do Not Meditate On Money And Sense Objects
When always thinking and meditating on money and objects of senses, one forgets whether they come from good or bad deeds; he does not care about it. It does not matter to him if the gratification is principled or unprincipled. They do not care about principles. If one meditates upon religious principles, then even wealth and gratification will become the reason for deliverance.
13. Never Exploit A Woman, A Child Or A Helpless Person
One who does not protect but rather exploits a child, a woman, a mad person, or a helpless will certainly be doomed. People getting angry or speaking rudely with you is the fruit of your karmic reactions. If you tolerate it, you will be purified. If you quarrel or fight, karma will worsen further. Children are innocent, so you have to protect them, not exploit them. One who is not mentally stable should be protected. If you serve elders and they say harsh words or criticise you, you must tolerate and behave well with them.
If you accept these shortcomings, you won’t find peace in this world or the next. Therefore, keep checking these periodically and rectifying if they exist in you. If you have any of these, use the power of spiritual discourse, devotion, and the holy name of God to give up these demerits. Your life will become auspicious.
Answered by – Pujya Shri Hit Premanand Ji Maharaj
Answered on 05.09.2023
