We Cannot Fail Spiritually
Dear friends,
Isn’t that great? O.K. … on to next week's letter. (On second thought, maybe an explanation is needed…?)
We are here to learn our lessons, and as we become more educated we increasingly feel Spirit’s touch and a joyful connectedness to everything around us. We are so isolated in our little selves, but that isolation is in our minds, not in reality. In fact, Yogananda said that we are perfectly in possession of God right now, and that all we need to do is to improve our knowing of that fact.
It is our little ego desires that block our knowledge of the Truth. The constant underlying current of thoughts and feelings of “If I just had a little more money” or “If I were only more popular” or “If I only had a better job” or “If only people cooperated with me” or… You get the idea. So finally, after countless lifetimes, we wind up with as much money as we could ever want, for example. But the hole in the heart is still there. How many wealthy people are truly and deeply happy? How many have $100 million and want just a little more? Finally we get what we want, learn that even that doesn’t do it, and simply move on to the next external desire.
Eventually we get it: Only Spirit can fill the hole in our hearts! At that point we become dedicated devotees and decide to make the path our top priority (mostly! :-) ). So were those bypaths spiritual failures? No! We were experimenting to learn the essence of Truth. Book-learning can never be enough. We learn more and more deeply from experience. Trying something that does not work is thus not a failure. Those grade B science movies where the scientist moans, “The experiment was a failure!” is not a true scientist. He disproved a hypothesis. Good… another incorrect idea down the drain.
The train is moving forward. Arriving at its destination is absolutely mandated and inexorable. It’s an extremely long train and you start your ride in the middle of it. You can walk forwards in the train and get there a touch earlier, or walk towards the back of the train and get there a little later. Even the “spiritual failure” of denying Spirit is a temporary condition. After each “failure” we come back thinking, "Well, that didn't work. I’ll try something else.”
May we fully cooperate with the movement of the train. We will get there either kicking and screaming, joyfully cooperating, or somewhere in between. May we each find it within ourselves to accept the lessons that come with a feeling of gratitude, knowing that, even when the test feels too hard, it is all part of the plan. The faster we learn, the faster we find the deep lasting joy we all seek and know for certain: it is within ourselves.
Blessings,
David G., manager
For the staff at East West