Sri Sai Baba`S:Charters And Sayings

NINTH TALK l79

as it were, all the time; and because they are running
round themselves, they think that everyone else must
be running round, them too. But they are not. Each
man is in his own circle—an equally vicious one, no
doubt. Probably nine-tenths of the cases, in which
people take offence at what other people say and
do, are rooted in this idea:

If a man does something which you think will harm
you, or says something which you think applies to you, do
not think at once : c( He meant to injure me'. Most probably
he never thought of you at all, for each soul has its own
troubles, and its thoughts turn chiefly round itself.

That is plain common-sense, yet how few people
ever practise it. I can remember an instance when
the thing came home to me very forcibly. When
I was a Priest, one afternoon, in our Parish Church
down in the country, I preached a sermon.
I really forget what the subject, was—it was about
some ordinary trial and temptation, which I thought
might come in the way of the farmers and the
labourers, who were my congregation. I explained
how a man got into trouble along that line. After
the service a farmer came to the vestry in a towering
rage and asked me what I meant by preaching a
sermon directed at him. Of course, poor man, he
gave himself away hopelessly. I had never before
supposed him to be guilty of this particular thing,
but evidently it was a sore point—the thing had
gone home. I expect to this day the poor man thinks
that I had singled him out. He said all his men were