Protect your spiritual treasure..
Many of us may have a question – Where do I stand in my devotion? Some may feel that they have been practicing devotion for the past 30 years and have progressed very little. Some others may think, they have been doing devotion for a few years and feel like they are where they started off, without much progress.
How can we judge where we stand and how far we have progressed in devotion? It’s simple – How much more is your mind naturally attached to Krishna and detached from the world. If someone tells you one harsh sentence, do you feel it? Are you still attached to worldly pleasures? Have Godly qualities like Truth, Non-Violence, Tolerance and Humility increased?
Many people are practicing devotion in the right manner, shedding tears of love and longing for Krishna along with loving remembrance. They accumulate a lot of spiritual wealth. But, when they come back to the world, they are not careful. We have to be really very cautious in guarding our spiritual treasure. Just like a miser, is careful in spending any money and slowly becomes a millionare, we have to guard or spiritual wealth and be extremely cautious, so that we don’t lose what we have gained when we come back to the world. Even if we don’t accumulate more spiritual wealth, we have to be very cautious so that we don’t spend what we earned in Satsang. Many of us are making this mistake, we are spending more than we earn. We commit spiritual transgressions, think negative about God and Saints. We look at fault in others, we spend so much time in material enjoyment and pleasure of the senses. For example, overeating can lead to so many diseases, whereas if we eat the right foods and in the right quantity and fresh, then we will get all the vitamins and proteins that our body needs. Instead, we eat for the taste of the tongue rather than for nutrition. If some says one harsh word, says ‘Get out’ – we feel so insulted and spend hours or even days feeling miserable about it – ‘How dare he talk to me like that?’ Forget it, he just used a few words, he hasn’t beaten you up or poisoned you. No one is trying to burn or poison us.
Nindak niyare rakhiye, Angan kuti chawai, bin pani sabun bina, nirmal kare subhaiy
Keep your critiques close to you, let their hut be in your courtyard,That way you don’t need soap n water to cleanse your nature
To try to be called good or to be seen as good in the eyes of others makes us fall in our devotion. We should instead try to actually become good. For example, when someone criticises you, you feel bad. You become angry with that person and feel he is your foe. You continuously think of him with animosity. We harm ourselves greatly when we do this.
Instead of bringing Krishna and Guru into our mind, we have given a place in our mind to a mayic soul. By doing so we are simply increasing the impurity of the mind, not decreasing it.
Take aside some time every night and read yourself, note down what mistakes you made that day and make a promise to yourself that you will not commit the same mistakes again. Next morning, make a mental note and make a conscious effort so that you do not repeat the same mistake again. Try this for 10-20 days and see how fast you progress. Give respect to everyone but do not expect any respect in return, become more humble than a blade of grass and more patient than a tree. People walk all over a blade of grass, the poor grass bends down and comes up again. Whether a person waters a tree with love or throws stones at a tree, cuts its branches or writes and scratches it, the tree gives fruits and flowers to everyone.
Protect your spiritual treasure that you have gained. Be very cautious not to spend what you have earned. You have to accumulate your spiritual wealth so that you maybe be God-realized one day and be drowned in unlimited, ever-increasing and ever-lasting bliss.
Hare Rama
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