The Future: "Are we there yet?"

Saskatchewan, Canada

Oh no! It's that familiar and unwelcome feeling at the pit of my stomach again: that's right. I'm nervous. Not again! The flight leaves in about ten hours. I don't really have time for this.

This is not the so-called Existential Crisis I had a few weeks ago. I will definitely miss my family and the devotees of the London community, but I now feel confident in the fact that, somehow, my Krishna conscious practicing life has brought me to this point, and the only way there is to go, is happily forward. I am fortunate that this way has been shown to me in a tangible and clear way by my Guru: “I will be very happy if you stay.” ‘Thought is progressive,’ and we also want our lives to be progressive, so I must go in the direction where I see some hope of making progress. In a letter of encouragement I received a few weeks ago from Sripad Akinchan Maharaj, he said: “You are taking a big step, a big risk -- for what? To make progress in spiritual life.”

So all the concerns I had a few weeks ago no longer trouble me.

But, ahead of me lies the ‘Great Unknown.’ Ahead of me lies a new environment, a new serving group, a new lifestyle, a new everything. And not just new, but unknown: I am not sure where I will be all of the time, what exactly I will be doing, or for how long even!

And most importantly, how do I know how I will respond to any of these new experiences and ‘Unknowns?’ Ahead of me will be so many new choices to make, and how do I know what I will decide and if I made the right choice?

The simple answer is: I don’t.

But surely, this is what progress is all about, right? This can only be an opportunity for spiritual progress. Because how much do I actually know I have truly learned until I put it into practice? Srila Sridhar Maharaj says in Sri Guru and His Grace: “What we have received from our spiritual master, in what way have we received it? Properly, or only showingly? The time has come to purify us, to test whether we are real students, real disciples, or his disciples only in face and confession.”

How can I make progress until I actually actively go out there and try what I think I have learned? Aristotle, writing on his theory of tragedy, said: “Well-being and ill-being reside in action, and the goal of life is an activity, not a quality; people possess certain qualities in accordance with their character, but they achieve well-being or its opposite on the basis of how they fare.” Similarly, I may feel that I have so many qualities, but until these are expressed, and until I find myself in a circumstance which tests them to their limit, I don’t know how much I truly know.

E.M. Forster said: “How do I know what I think, until I see what I say?” How do I really know where my faith lies, and how deep it lies, until I see how I express it? As Srila Sridhar Maharaj continues, “…what is the depth of our creed? In what attitude have we accepted his teachings? How deep-rooted is it within us? The fire has come to test whether we can stand. Is our acceptance real? Or is it a sham, an imitation? This fire will prove that.”

Through trying to follow the teachings of our Gurus, and through the association of my God-sisters and God-brothers, I may easily feel that I know something and understand something. But all this so-called knowledge could at any moment be revealed as a mere theoretical understanding. As Sripad Akinchan Maharaj wrote in a blog a few months ago: “If I read Bhagavad Gita but I do not apply its philosophy to my daily life, then what is the value of that reading? It has served only to entertain me for a few hours.”

For my own spiritual progress, I need these ‘Unknowns’ and new challenges. How can I ever make personal growth if I do not encounter new challenges, problems and difficulties? This is an indispensable part of my spiritual life. Srila Sridhar Maharaj continues:

“So, this is the real field of sadhana, or practice. Our practice, our advancement needs these difficulties. Otherwise, we may not know what is progress, and we will become hypocrites, and give the adulterated thing to others. So, to purify ourselves, it is necessary that so many disturbances come.”

And what if I fail? Because surely that is why I feel any nervousness at all. What if I do encounter a choice and make the wrong decision? What if what I thought I knew is revealed to be nothing more than a mere theoretical understanding? What if the degree to which I truly live by the principles of ‘humility, tolerance and respect’ is revealed through one circumstance as being very little after all?

Srila Sridhar Maharaj: “Progress means elimination and acceptance…. Life is dynamic; we are living in a dynamic world. Everywhere we find acceptance and elimination. That is progress. And our life must be progressive, not static.”

In this case, failure can’t be such a bad thing after all. Because how do I “eliminate?” By first finding the faults, the conceptions and untruths that need to eliminated from my consciousness. And one way I can find them is by expressing them – i.e. by making a mistake. So failure is all a part of the learning process, if we have the correct attitude.

And if I try to be sincere, then I must be successful, even if I do make mistakes along the way: “Sincerity is invincible.”

Comments

[Vaidehi Devi Dasi]

Whooooo!!!
Yeah! Go damayanti go damayanti!!
That was awesome.

I really like what you said. We do need obstacles to make advancement.
We do need to recognize our mistakes otherwise we will float along in ignorant bliss.

Who cares if you make a mistake!!! I will still love you :)

So will everybody else.
When you make a mistake, people won't point and laugh at you, they will give you their hand and help you.

(That is of course if you go to the right people)

and if they point and laugh at you maybe it's one of those other favorable tests that we always have to live down.

You are right though. It is really the unknown isn't it?
What will happen? ahhhhhh!!
Don't even think about it.
gulp.

Sincerity is invincible and there are so many living witnesses to that statement.

I know several people that have wanted to live at the ashram but they have not been able to either because there is no room or what not.

But there have been some recent people that are very sincere and have wanted to live at the ashram and the arrangements have been made for them in two shakes of an ax tail.
(As Ramai would say) It means, very fast. hahaha

Sincerity is invincible and Gurudev's mercy makes it invincible!!!

Love you!!