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Developing Good Samskaras > Page2
Important and distinct actions leave a deep impression on the mind; other actions fade away from memory. When we write a diary, we mention only two or three outstanding events. When from these daily accounts we make up a weekly summary, many event of these will drop out and only the most outstanding events remain. In the same way, in a month or six months, in a year or five years, very few outstanding events alone remain in the memory and it is these which form our samskara. Though innumerable actions take place, and endless knowledge is acquired, in the end, the mind retains very little of it all.
All those various actions, all that varied knowledge came along, and did their work and disappeared. Out of all this action only a few lasting samskara are left. And these form our capital. We conduct the business of life and accumulate samskara. The merchant keeps his daily, monthly and annual accounts of income and expenditure, and at the end arrives at the single figure of profit or loss; in the course of our lives, we enter on the credit side various samskara, but at the end a single, firm clear, figure remains in the account. In the last moments of life the soul begins to think of this final figure. As it looks back on all the achievements of a lifetime it realizes that the gains are just two or three things.
This does not mean that all those actions and all that knowledge have been wasted. They have done their work, and that is all. After the thousands of transaction, the net result is just a loss of five thousand rupees, or a profit of ten thousand rupees. If there is a loss his heart sinks, and if there is a gain it bounds with joy.
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