The Amazon Prime ad stated in bold letters : No Patience Required. Wow, I thought. That is the antithesis of spiritual life. Patience is the delightful component that moves us forward on our inner journey. Patience makes us wait, and in the practice of waiting we become ready to receive. In the quiet and stillness of patience we hear and see better. Patience is our friend and guide to going home. Much patience required!
My herbal tea bag later gave me another message: Recognize that you are the truth. Mmm. I think it’s suggesting that I am God. Not feeling that right now – have a headache, wish I had more money, and could control my mind. What kind of God is that? The truth is, we are part of God, as a spark is part of a fire. When we connect with that identity, we are touching the ultimate truth of who we are. Until we do that we could say, in truth, the rest is all a lie.
As I sipped my tea, I looked at the other messages on the other tea bags and mused over their meaning:
“Dignity and tranquility last forever”. In reality, in this world dignity and tranquility are as fleeting as the wind. The body itself is a noisy embarrassment we are stuck with and the mind is rarely tranquil. Nothing connected to this body lasts forever, except our spirit selves, who move on when the body folds.
“Our intuition comes from innocence”. In bhakti, intuition comes from the Lord in the heart, our wise friend and guide. It also comes from prayer, experience, honesty, and the desire to do the right thing and the best good.
“Where there is love there is no question”. Actually, where there is love there are lots of questions – How can I serve you? What would you like? Can I help you? We express our love by the things we do. To love Krishna, we do devotional service and we ask lots of questions.
“Joy is the essence of success.” We might say that joy is a byproduct of success, but that grace is really the essence of success. If we can connect with Krishna as the source of our inspiration and action, then joy will be there – in success or failure.
Messages come at us all day long. Play with them. They will either reveal a great truth in bhakti or remind us if we are heading in the wrong direction. They too will be our teachers.
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