A seeker asked:
- How will I know whether I am properly following the rules or not?
- I don’t understand what exactly are “useless” or “unnecessary” conversations? Sometimes I end up writing such unnecessary things only to you, Gurudev. With others, I usually speak only to the point, and that too only if they ask something. In that case, have I broken the rule?
Adi Suyash answers:
The way to know whether you are truly following the rules is simple. Try to remain conscious at all times. The aim is to do nothing unconsciously. Do not allow any action, thought, or behavior to pass without your awareness, without your permission, without your clear recognition of it.
Your destiny is not shaped in a single dramatic moment. It is written quietly through your day to day, moment to moment choices. It is shaped by your reactions, your words, your habits, and your actions. If these arise compulsively or contradict what you have consciously chosen to be and to do, they will slowly accumulate and carry you in a direction you never intended. They will write your destiny on your behalf.
Freedom begins when you decide what you truly wish to do and there is no inner conflict. Every cell of your being moves in alignment with your decision. There is no second thought, no resistance, no opposition within.
The goal you seek is not reached by a single grand act. It is reached through countless small thoughts, tiny actions, and subtle shifts in behavior. Each one combines, multiplies, and interacts with the others. Every thought must become a conscious expression of your intention.
That is freedom.
The goal, therefore, is to remain conscious of each of your actions. Reflect deeply on whatever you do. Live as if you are constantly being observed.
When you feel that someone else is watching you, you naturally begin to watch yourself. You become self-aware. In the same way, learn to observe yourself deliberately and strictly. Study yourself as a scientist studies a subject in a laboratory. Examine your actions, your reactions, your habits, and your behavior with honesty and precision.
This is how you will know whether you are truly following the rules, or at least whether you are moving in the direction these rules are meant to guide you. Not a single action of yours should be unconscious or unnoticed. Nothing should arise merely from compulsion, impulse, or old patterns of behavior.
Every action must pass through awareness.
Secondly, there must be a clear and thorough understanding of the rules themselves. You must understand their essence, not just remember their wording.
Rewatch the session on the rules. Listen to it again and again. Summarize them in your own words. Analyze each aspect carefully, just as a lawyer studies the law with precision and attention to detail. Do not stop at surface understanding. Try to understand why these rules came into existence. What problem do they address? What transformation are they designed to bring about?
Only when you understand their purpose and inner logic will you be able to follow them with clarity, avoiding confusion.
Now understand what “useless” or “unnecessary” conversation truly means.
No conversation is inherently useful. By default, all speech is neutral. It becomes meaningful only when it serves a clear purpose. It is like letters, like random blog posts on the internet, or like tools kept in a corner of your house. A tool has value only when it is used to accomplish something specific.
Even small talk such as “Hi, how are you?” can be important if it serves an objective. If your goal in speaking with someone is to build trust, create comfort, strengthen friendship, or maintain harmony, then such conversation is not useless. If a seemingly casual or indirect exchange helps prepare the ground for something necessary, then it has value.
At the same time, even a profound philosophical quote or a deep speech becomes useless when spoken without purpose. If it is not for your own growth, nor for the genuine benefit of another, and if it arises merely from the urge to speak, then it is of no use.
The wise speaks because he has something to say. The fool speaks because he has to say something.
Do not feel the need to fill every silence. Do not use a tool when it is not required. If you keep using your phone when there is no need, that is addiction. The same applies to speech and even to thought.
See your words as instruments. Before you speak, ask yourself five questions. Is what I am about to say:
Timely — spoken at the right moment?
Truthful — aligned with facts?
Affectionate — expressed gently, not harshly?
Beneficial — intended to help?
Rooted in goodwill — arising from kindness rather than malice?
When your speech fulfills all five, it is of the highest quality. At the very least, ensure that three of these qualities are present in whatever you say. Speech guided by these principles is never useless.
The aim of this rule is to make you speak less. Talking, too, becomes an addiction.
You speak because there is an excess of thought within you. You feel the need to empty your mind by putting those thoughts into words. But if your thoughts become fewer, your speech naturally reduces. And if you consciously begin to speak less, your thoughts also begin to quiet down. The two are deeply connected.
Many people feel the urge to get married, enter a relationship, make constant friends, or even seek therapy, simply because they want someone to talk to. Conversation becomes a psychological need. People in relationships can speak for hours each day. But pause and ask yourself, what is the real necessity? Why do you feel such a strong compulsion to keep talking? Why is silence uncomfortable?
If you are addicted to speaking, you must outgrow it. You must become comfortable with silence. Let go of Vaikhari and Madhyama, and you will fall into Para Vāk.
There is a story in the Katha Sarit Sagara about a group of fools and Nandi, the bull of Shiva:
There was in a certain convent, full of fools, a man who was the greatest fool of the lot. He once heard in a treatise on law, which was being read out, that a man, who has a tank made, gains a great reward in the next world. Then, as he had a large fortune, he had made a large tank full of water, at no great distance from his own convent. One day this prince of fools went to take a look at that tank of his, and perceived that the sand had been scratched up by some creature. The next day too he came, and saw that the bank had been torn up in another part of that tank, and being quite astonished, he said to himself, “I will watch here to-morrow the whole day, beginning in the early morning, and I will find out what creature it is that does this.”
After he had formed this resolution, he came there early next morning, and watched, until at last he saw a bull descend from heaven and plough up the bank with its horns. He thought, “This is a heavenly bull, so why should I not go to heaven with it?” And he went up to the bull, and with both his hands laid hold of the tail behind. Then the holy bull lifted up with the utmost force the foolish man, who was clinging to its tail, and carried him in a moment to its home in Kailása. There the foolish man lived for some time in great comfort, feasting on heavenly dainties, sweetmeats, and other things which he obtained. And seeing that the bull kept going and returning, that king of fools, bewildered by destiny, thought, “I will go down clinging to the tail of the bull and see my friends, and after I have told them this wonderful tale, I will return in the same way.” Having formed this resolution, the fool went and clung to the tail of the bull one day when it was setting out and so returned to the surface of the earth.
When he returned to the convent, the other blockheads, who were there, embraced him, and asked him where he had been, and he told them. Then all those foolish men, having heard the tale of his adventures, made this petition to him; “Be kind and take us also there, enable us also to feast on sweetmeats.” He consented, and told them his plan for doing it, and the next day he led them to the border of the tank and the bull came there. And the principal fool seized the tail of the bull with his two hands, and another took hold of his feet, and a third in turn took hold of his. So, when they had formed a chain by clinging on to one another’s feet, the bull flew rapidly up into the air. And while the bull was going along, with all the fools clinging to his tail, it happened that one of the fools said to the principal fool; “Tell us now, to satisfy our curiosity; how large were those sweetmeats which you ate, of which a never-failing supply can be obtained in heaven?” Then the leader had his attention diverted from the business in hand and quickly joined his hands together like the cup of a lotus, and exclaimed in answer, “So big.” But in so doing he let go the tail of the bull. And accordingly, he and all those others fell from heaven, and were killed, and the bull returned to Kailasa; but the people, who saw it, were much amused.
“Fools do themselves an injury by asking questions and giving answers without reflection.”
Speak only when it is necessary, and reflect before you speak. Otherwise, again and again, you will fall from Parā Vāk, from Kailāśa, into the world, like the fools.
The moment you speak, you begin to real-ify what was false. You make something definite that was never truly definite. The instant an experience is given words, it loses its purity. It becomes a narrative. It becomes a label. And what is labelled is already reduced.
Revisit Episodes 2 and 3 on Vaikharī Vāk. Understand this deeply.
To speak less, only where needed, and with reflection, is to prevent this descent.
