2
Aptavani-1
being obstinate and inflexible? You will realize your obstinacy
when some day it surfaces from within. Another way to realize
your obstinacy is when you come to the Gnani Purush; you will
be surprised to learn how much obstinacy remains within you.
Will you not have to become straight?
Questioner: Why does obstinacy (aadayee) not go
away?
Dadashri: How can it go? It has made a home within you
for many days and then there is the unwritten renter’s law of our
land; a renter never leaves once he rents your home. So is the
obstinacy that has entered within you, ever likely to leave?
I told one person, “Why are you being so obstinate? Be
less obstinate!” He said, “One cannot survive in this world
without being obstinate.” I told him, “Even a snake has to
straighten up in order to enter its hole, so become straight if you
want to enter moksha. If not, people will straighten you out and
only then will you be able to go to moksha. People will beat you
and straighten you up. So what is wrong in becoming straight
yourself?” Do people not beat us and make us shape up
(straighten up)?
Questioner: They do but even then people do not
straighten up, do they?
Dadashri: But there is no choice except to straighten up
sooner or later, is there? Obstinacy will leave on its own once
you have a bitter experience. There exists endless obstinacy.
One has never met anyone to straighten him out in any of his
previous lives. He would not wander in this manner had he met
someone. So everything happens, but he does not remain
straight. What does the world do? It keeps beating him to the
point where he straightens up. If he does not straighten up, then
his wife, his children and the world will beat him into becoming
straight.