380
Aptavani-9
Questioner: A person must have some interest in our
work that he criticizes (do teeka), is that not so?
Dadashri: To criticize is the main attribute of the ego. It
is an attribute of competitiveness (spardha) and that is why
criticism remains. Besides, competitiveness is always there in this
worldly life. There is liberation when competitiveness leaves.
When people go on fasts, it all occurs due to the effect of the
attribute of competitiveness; ‘that other person did fifteen fasts,
so I will do thirty!’ Still, it is not worth criticizing anyone.
When you criticize other people, you ruin your ‘clothes’
first, then your body and then your heart. That is it. So do not
get involved with anyone because is everyone not an owner of
his world, his space, inner and outer? The ownership titles are
his own. How can you criticize or violate that? You are
trespassing when you do so.
The escape from the racecourse
Now all this (competitiveness) is going to carry on for
sure. One is not at all the doer of anything; he has simply
developed a habit of tasting the fruit of doer-ship (garvaras).
When a person learns that someone earns eight hundred rupees,
he thinks, ‘I earn eighteen hundred so I do not have a problem.
He gets only eight hundred.’ This is how it all sta