พระอาจารย์ขยายความคำสอนของคุณยายอาจารย์ที่ว่าเราเป็นอย่างไรบริวารก็เป็นอย่างนั้น อธิบายว่าพฤติกรรมของเราในอดีตสร้างวิบากที่ดึงดูดคนประเภทเดียวกันมาเป็นบริวาร รวมถึงความหมายของการอบรมสั่งสอนที่แท้จริงคือความจริงใจและความสัจจริงจังPra Ajarn expands on a teaching from Khun Yai (the senior lay teacher of this lineage) that as we are, so are our followers. He explains how our past conduct creates karmic results that draw the same kind of people to us as our companions and dependents, and what it truly means to be trained with sincerity and seriousness of purpose.
Someone asked Pra Ajarn to expand on a teaching by Khun Yai (the senior lay teacher of this lineage): "As we are, so are our followers."
As We Are, So Are Our Followers
Khun Yai taught: when we work, we must do it in earnest, never half-heartedly. If we work half-heartedly, our followers will be half-hearted too. When we use things, we must know how to use them properly — if we don't, our followers won't either, and won't take care of them. When we die and meet those who follow us again, they will be just the same. As we are, so are our followers. We must set our minds to work well and to use things well, so that we will have only good followers.
Pra Ajarn explained that this is a genuine truth, because it draws together the same kind of nature — like birds of a feather flocking together, crows with crows, sheep with goats each their own kind. Even among humans, we still sort ourselves into groups according to our own kind.
Past Conduct Creates the Karmic Pull That Draws Our Followers
Whoever we were in the past — how we made others feel, how those around us felt — shapes what comes back to us. If we were careless and half-hearted in the past, others grew weary and exasperated with us. We were under the control of an unwholesome nature that had become lord of our heart, setting a program for a completed existence, which then guided consciousness into that particular birth. A director appears at the center of the heart, dictating what we must say and think, and we believe we're thinking it ourselves. Every action requires concentration; if it's on side, it becomes wrong concentration, continuously drawing in unwholesome energy. Once the act is completed, a finished blueprint results — composed of unwholesome energy, the suffering and danger it carries, and the misfortune attached to it — stored within the sphere of , waiting to bear fruit.
Beyond the karmic result that returns directly to us, there is another kind of result that arises from how our conduct affects others. When our behavior makes others weary and exasperated, that karmic result draws in people who will give us the very same experience in return — drawing careless, half-hearted people to us as our followers, so that we, too, feel that same weariness and exasperation as the outcome. This is why we must maintain conduct that is correct and good, to set the right example for others. Those who witness it receive the right model to follow, and this creates the pull that draws people who live rightly and well to surround us as our companions.
We Are Responsible for the Effects We Create
Whether good or bad, if our actions affect others, we bear the responsibility for it always. It's like a wife who cares for a husband who drinks — if she prepares food to go with his drinking and approves of it, she must bear the responsibility later. When that karmic result ripens, the husband might be reborn in the same lifetime with impaired mental faculties from the drinking, and the wife would then have to take on the burden of caring for him. When we use things, we must know how to use them properly; if we don't, our followers won't either. The karmic pull that clings to us releases a wave of unwholesome energy that changes the character of children or companions who live with us, because it draws out and strengthens the unwholesome "body within the body" more easily in them.
We Must Establish Ourselves in Honesty and Sincerity
Pra Ajarn explained that we must establish ourselves in honesty, integrity, and sincerity — never being insincere. Whether using belongings or staying in someone else's home, we must care for things as though they were our own, with real sincerity. When the mind is honest and sincere, system settles in, quietly guiding us to act rightly and well, never setting a bad example for others. This is why Khun Yai taught us to do everything in earnest — to be a person of truth, grounded in sincerity, honesty, and seriousness of purpose. Whatever we do, we must reach its true essence — the hidden goal, the key point that unlocks our release from this coarser dimension into a more refined one. And that requires, as its foundation, truthfulness: being genuine, sincere, and serious.