In order to become recipients of God’s grace, treat the pairs of opposites like pleasure and pain, happiness and sorrow, praise and blame with equal-mindedness.

Someone is abusing you; as long as the abuse is outside the range of your sense organs, you are not affected by what is said. But if the abusive words reach your ears, you get excited and enraged. What is the reason for this? As long as there was no contact between the external happenings and the sense organs, the individual was unruffled. To take an opposite example: someone is praising you and expatiating on your great qualities. As long as the words of praise have not reached your ears, you derive no joy nor do you feel a sense of endearment. But once you have heard the words of praise, you rejoice in them and develop a love for the speaker. What is the reason for disliking one or loving another? It is the contact with the things in the external world. The senses will be able to get on peacefully only when they have minimised their contacts with the world outside. It is not so easy to control the sense organs. The easier path is to develop an attitude of equipoise.

BAGAVAN SRI SRI SRI SATHYA SAI BABA