The Boy Who Became a Saint

In my school in India, there was a boy who was brought in by his parents. We used to take only children under twelve years of age, but he was much older. I told him he could stay on one condition—that he was willing to be good.

I had a heart-to-heart talk with him and said: “You have made up your mind to smoke, but your parents do not want you to smoke. You have succeeded in defeating your parents, but you have not succeeded in defeating your own misery. You are hurting yourself.”

My arrow had struck home, and he began to weep. He said, “They are always beating me.”

I said, “Think of what you are doing to yourself. Come on, I will take you, on one condition—that I will not be a detective, but your friend. As long as you are willing to correct your mistakes, I will be your helper, but if you tell lies, I will do nothing for you. Lying destroys friendship. Do not lie to me.”

I accepted him and said, “Anytime you want to smoke, I will get you cigarettes.”

One day, he came to me and said, “I feel a terrible desire to smoke.” I offered him money, and he could scarcely believe his eyes. He said, “Take back the money.” He did not want it. I was pushing him to go and buy the cigarettes, but he would not go. At last, after this tug-of-war, he said, “You will not believe me, but I no longer want to smoke.”

The result of all the teaching and discipline was that he finally became a saint. I roused his spiritual consciousness. The greatest of all spiritual consciousness lies in the inner effort to go upstream toward lasting happiness. Very few people are making the effort. However, you can make a constant effort to become good, even if your sins are as deep as the Atlantic Ocean.

Wisdom Gem

Through a few incarnations you have been a human being, but through eternity you have been a child of God.

-Paramhansa Yogananda from Stories from the Life of Yogananda