Once we take a vow, we must keep it. Before taking the vow, everything is easy. But there will be many tests that arise in our lives after we take a vow. This is to strengthen the mind. For example, if you take a vow to abstain from desserts for six months, you will find that more temptations come after you take the promise. In the heat of the moment, in the presence of my Master, I made a few promises. I have kept some and broken some. I took a vow to always speak the truth, and yet, I have broken it many times. I took a vow not to yield to anger, I broke it in less than a day. I even tried the vow of being humble and lost it in a second, thinking I was humble. Thank God, it has been over 20 years since I have kept the vow of being vegetarian. Even a vow to keep silence daily benefits you. One vow that has great power is to live a life with no complaints. That is hard. Just saying, “It is so cold today,” is a complaint in itself. So, what vow can we all keep? “Lord, I make one vow that I will never break, that You will always be my best friend. No one will be closer to my heart than You.” My mind is weak and might fail in everything else, but not in this vow. This vow requires my heart and not my head. So it is easy for me to keep. The second vow is to not grow up, to keep having fun as a child who has come to play. — Satish Daryanani
