Re: The Test of Complete Faith

Dear Devotees,

      Nityananda Gauranga Hare Krishna! My humble pranams!

      My spiritual masters have always said only one thing whenever I have complained, "Just surrender to the Lord with all your heart and pray to Him. Lord Nityananda will immediately rush in." We have no chance against maya by our own efforts as we are puny souls, atomic particles with nanometre size and potency.

      But the Lord, when we give Him the room to enter, oh my, what miracles happen! When we allow ourselves to be carried by the Lord, suddenly the whole material ocean simply reduces to a small hole in the ground. But to do this we have to be really willing to trust the Lord.

      The mind is an evil thing It will come up with all the most challenging questions. We must keep our cool and see this as its attempt to distract us and just carry on. As they say, "Just DO it." See that's how maya works. She wants us to accept the temporary solution over the permanent one. And this theory not going into practice ends up in speculation which really wastes mental energy and leaves one lethargic. 

      Don't look back. The things we leave behind are so dirty that simply thinking about the past is enough to tempt the senses to fall back.

      I have been a theoretician all my life. It did not work beyond a point. It needs to be put into action. Fact is, we all need to recognize the seriousness of spirituality and the absolute necessity to take shelter of the Lord in the form of the Holy names. We manage to find time to eat and sleep, so why not spare some time for the Lord too?

      It needs quite some discipline with D being the first letter of devotion. But we spare so much time and energy for so many things in life, let us atleast spare some for the Lord.  Some seriousness is needed. We must tell ourselves that we are not doing a hobby in our spare time and take it as serious work. It has to be forced in the beginning because a materially dirty heart does not have any taste for spiritual life. But then as the heart gets purer, discipline is not forced anymore and it is done naturally out of love.

     But till that time comes, one needs to force oneself like a soldier. Like an obsession or a fetish. Anyway a devotee is a spiritual soldier, as Prabhupada said, "Vaikuntha men!" . So get tough, tell yourself, "Strength! Strength! Will power! Courage! Tolerance! Love!" and just LOUDLY chant "Nityananda! Gauranga! and Hare Krishna!"

Daaso'smi,
Srinath

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