When one's thoughts, intentions, feelings, purposes, or goals become solely to attain the supreme Lord, to serve the Lord, or to serve or please His unique devotee, then one's inner self becomes pure. The inner self is pure. So, his intention is pure. So, the purity of intention is when it is done for God, then it is pure. And if it is done for oneself and for the world, then it is impure. When those same intentions, purposes, or goals are directed towards obtaining worldly objects, respect, greatness, power, prosperity, or conveniences, if those intentions become about obtaining pleasures, then all those intentions become polluted, spoiled. They are called bad intentions. Then, if it worsens further, intentions like troubling someone, this and that, all those intentions. So, it is called worse than that. When those same intentions, purposes, or goals are directed towards obtaining worldly objects, respect, greatness, power, prosperity, or conveniences, then one's inner self becomes corrupt. So, even if we have mostly become sadhus, what is it that we are not very aware of this? That even if we have become sadhus, we still make efforts for all these conveniences and all that. Then, how much of what is possible comes into our hands is a different matter, but we still do it. So, it means that is his intention. The intention to please God, we do not get a grip on it. Now, we should only intend to please Him. We have left such intentions at home and come here. When we were at home, we were doing all of that. And if that was what we were to do, since we have come here, we should keep such an intention. But to have an intention opposite to the body, the body's desires, is a bit difficult. And it does not move forward. So then, one does it a little and leaves it. This is not moving, does it seem right or not? Signal problem. What? Is there a signal problem? [inaudible] Meaning? [inaudible] That is his state as a seeker. So, the vasanas of the previous birth force him to desire pleasures. To suppress them and make a good intention is the seeker's spiritual practice. Those intentions, suppose a person gets thoughts of pleasure and thoughts of vasana, that is not called an intention. That is called vasana. Intention is what is made purposefully and with dedication. So, in modern language, it is called a goal. Yes. If one sets a good goal and then sticks to it, merely setting a good goal does not complete it. After setting a good goal, one should plan and make efforts accordingly. One must stick to it under any adverse circumstances. Then it moves forward. And its opponents, rather than external ones, the internal opponents are also very many. If we make a good intention, even the body does not support it, even the mind does not support it. All our vasanas are meant to take us in the opposite direction. So, it is not necessary that only external people damage the intention; even inside us, there are those who damage our intention or our goal. So, how to get out of that? Then the intention is fulfilled, and then the purity of the inner state is said to be achieved, yes. But if one sets a goal externally like this, and if one sets it firmly, then those suppress the mind. The goal is formed in the inner self, then whichever side the jiva joins, that side wins and the other side is defeated. So, if the jiva has weak intentions, then it ignores the goal that was set, lets it go, and remains active only in the other, like that. So, during the seeker stage, all this is on both sides; all these are called its oppositions. Weak thoughts that arise are all called oppositions to setting a goal, obstacles. So, one has to think about how to deal with it, how to remove it. When many people with good intentions gather, then this person gets the enthusiasm for good intentions. So, if they live in such an environment, in such a culture, or if the surroundings are like that, then they get the enthusiasm for good intentions. And if there are many with weak intentions and a person lives there, then he keeps thinking of such new, weak intentions, yes. And for weak intentions, always, a big title has been used for them: silent. They are not such that they can be told to anyone outside, but they exist in practice. That is, they do it, so they have to show a good face outside to anyone, to anyone. But since they are his weak intentions, it becomes very difficult to catch them and it becomes very difficult to get rid of them. To leave their association is difficult, isn't it? Many times it happens that all around us are people with weak intentions, and since we have settled here, since we have settled, we tolerate those weak ones, thinking, 'No problem, our setting is fine here, now let's spend our life in this only.' So then, one collaborates with them. Even if he himself is not weak, even if he has good desires, but to settle his life with them and to carry on his life, he collaborates with those weak intentions and says, 'It's okay, you go ahead, no problem, I will do mine and you do yours.' So, in that, he does not get any inspiration or motivation for good intentions. So, only this much praise happens in this world, that 'You are very good, we are not like you,' everyone tells him that. When those same intentions, purposes, or goals are directed towards obtaining worldly objects, respect, greatness, power, prosperity, or conveniences, then one's inner self becomes corrupt. Then he has no good intention or, as we discussed earlier, willpower; the jiva's willpower is a gift from God. So, to make an intention is a gift from God. What kind of intention, a strong desire, that is desire that to make such an intention, God has given us a very big plus point. God has given us the strength to make it good. And if one makes a good intention, he gets liberated from birth and death. So, what a great power, a huge power this is. But it happens only if one uses it properly. So, if a person uses those intentions to obtain the objects of this world, then he falls into a pit, the person is ruined. All his power is ruined. In using weak intentions, in making weak intentions, that willpower is ruined. And if one makes a good intention and fulfills even one, then his willpower becomes strong, which we call willpower. Willpower. As said about a leader, willpower and humbleness. These are his two extraordinary qualities. One is that there must be willpower, and another is that there must be simplicity. He should be able to manage with the minimum of things. AI translation of the Gujarati transcript above, produced in the same pass that transcribed the audio, one English segment per Gujarati segment. Devotional and technical terms with no precise English equivalent (kirtan, satsang, vasana, samskara, and similar) are kept as their plain transliteration rather than force-translated. Not human-proofread., AI-translated, unverified · Source details