Seven Habits of Sincere Spiritual Seekers

 

Six years ago, I met a man online who asked me, "How can we be happy and peaceful if we have committed a grave mistake in our life?" I answered him with the following reply:

If one has committed a grave mistake in his life, he can consider adopting the following suggestions. I call them The Seven Habits of Sincere Spiritual Seekers: 

(1) One should immediately take shelter of God's holy names and cry out to Him like a child cries to its mother. 

(2) One should immediately attempt to rectify himself through good behavior that is pleasing to God.

(3) One should pray to God to help him behave properly. 

(4) One should give up the company of people who tend to lead him astray.

(5) One should gather around himself spiritually-inclined people who are enthusiastic about dedicating themselves to God's service. 

(6) One should endeavor to make his life a life of moment-to-moment loving service to God.

(7) One should pray to God to kindly accept his service. 

We are all full of faults and every one of us has committed grave mistakes as well as countless small mistakes over the course of many lifetimes. In fact, that is one of the features of the conditioned soul--bhrama--that he has a tendency to commit mistakes. So we have to be forgiving of ourselves and our weaknesses, take shelter of God's holy names, and arrange our life so that the people we live with and associate with support us in our spiritual quest. 

Chanting the holy names of God is the most highly recommended process in this age for becoming self-realized. Self-realization means to understand who we are, who God is, and to understand our eternal, loving relationship with Him. The ultimate stage of self-realization involves uncovering our natural love for God and resuming our eternal service to Him. If one has a bona fide name of God to chant, he can chant that name. If one has no bona fide name of God to chant, he can chant Krsna's holy names--Hare Krsna Hare Krsna Krsna Krsna Hare Hare/ Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare. (The Hare part is pronounced Huh-ray, the Krsna part is pronounced Krish-na and the Rama part is pronounced Rah-ma.) This is called the maha-mantra, or the great chanting for deliverance, and is the most powerful mantra for cleansing the mind of all unwanted things which block our spiritual progress.

No Atheists in a Foxhole

We are all atheists, to one degree or another. All of us in the material world, that is. For the first time in my life, I am wanting to memorize the following verse: vipadah santu tah sasvat tatra tatra jagad-guro bhavato darsanam yat syad apunar bhava-darsanam I wish that all those calamities would happen again and again so that we could see You again and again, for seeing You means that we will no longer see repeated births and deaths. Krsna is trying to teach me to be grateful for all the tests He gives me. I am practicing gratitude because it is a positive emotion and because it is healing. When I think in a reactive way to my husband's stupid behaviors, I get angry, indignant, vengeful and depressed. Such negative emotions drain my energy and throw big roadblocks in my devotional progress. When I think in an honest way, I see the little acts of devotion that my husband renders which are never forgotten by Krsna. Then, with gratitude, my heart softens and I overlook all the stupid, irresponsible mistakes he makes daily due to his condition. I then am no longer appalled by the ridiculous blunders of my demented husband. Rather, a sincere "Thank You" rises up from the ashes at the bottom of my heart, thanking Krsna for reducing my husband to a crazy lunatic. I am then inspired to cry out to Krsna for solace and protection, for guidance how to go on serving my husband with even greater patience and sensitivity, for steadiness in all trying circumstances and for even more gratitude for the insane predicament I find myself in. That is why calamities are such a blessing--because they give us incentive to give up our atheism and call out to Krsna with utter desperation and absolute surrender, like a child crying for his mother. Sooner or later, we will all realize that we are--each and every one of us--in our own desperate circumstantial foxholes, faced with the need for protection and saving grace. To whom will we turn for succour? Krsna is there in our hearts, waiting. He's there in our foxhole with us, waiting for us to cry out to Him for shelter. We just have to turn toward Him and recognize our dearest, most loyal friend. At that point, we are no longer an atheist. When will we realize we are in a foxhole, needing to be saved? The answer is, we will realize our awkward circumstances when we recognize that Krsna is our best friend with our best interest at heart, when we begin to practice gratitude for the painful lessons He gives us in this world, and when we cry out to Him with helpless desperation, like a child crying for his mother. At that point, Krsna will lift us out of the foxhole and take us back home to His eternal shelter, where we will no longer see repeated births and deaths.

Timed, Numbered Lists

When things are too hard, or even when they're not, I write lists. It makes the big things seem smaller, easier to tackle. When I add numbers to the left of the to-do items, saying to myself, This is most urgent, so it gets a one, this is second most urgent, so it gets a two, etc, my mind starts to relax and my body relaxes along with my mind. I start to feel happy and focused on what I need to do. Then, to the right of each item, I designate a duration of time I allow myself to work on completing that task. When I assign lengths of time allowed for engaging in accomplishing each item--especially when I use a timer and stop when the timer beeps--I take a deep breath and spring into action, feeling empowered by those numbers. Somehow, lists empower me, my timer motivates me and numbers work magic on my mind. I love lists, I love numbers, and I love my timer. By the end of the day, I get more items checked off than on days when I don't write a numbered to-do list that I time myself to accomplish. And when I accomplish more, I feel better about myself.

Person and Prayer

The Holy Name is a person. The Supreme Person. Chanting the Holy Name is a prayer, a prayer to the Supreme Person, asking Him to please engage us in His service, asking Him to accept us back into His pastimes, asking Him to purify our hearts so that we can resume our eternal identity as His loving servant. So chanting the Holy Name is a prayer to the Supreme Person, who is non-different from His name. The Holy Name or the maha-mantra--Hare Krsna Hare Krsna Krsna Krsna Hare Hare / Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare--is the Supreme Person. And chanting that Holy Name is a prayer to that same Supreme Person. This is what I am meditating on as I chant my japa today.

Assisting the Gopis

Every mornig at Mangala Arati we sing 'nikunjayuno ratikeli siddhyai' glorifying our spiritual master for being dear to Radha and Krsna because of always assisting Their gopi friends by arranging delightful rendezvous for the Divine Couple in the spiritual world. While he was here on earth, Srila Prabhupada served a gopi--Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura. Now he is in the spiritual world assisting the gopis. So this verse of Gurvastam was always applicable to our spiritual master, both here in this world and in the spiritual world.

Insulting Assumption

Anyone else ever had the experience of being told that their undiagnosed chronic pain is psychosomatic? "It could be referred pain, or it might be imagined." How insulting is that? I've had chronic pain in my lower right inguinal region for three years. I have had three sonograms done to try to find out what the heck is causing the pain. Nobody can find the source. So when confronted with their own inability to discover the problem, some doctors have had the audacity to blame it on my mind. Say what???

Garland Seva by Guest Author: Bhakta David Heal

I was blessed to make garlands for Sri Sri Nitai-Gaurasundara last night and also for Srila Prabhupada and Srila Bhaktisiddhanta. As I was working on the garlands, I thought of Bhakta David Heal, who is a florist up in Virginia. I wondered if he had ever been engaged in the delightful service of making garlands for Their Lordships and the Acaryas. I just received a WhatsApp message from him today. He gave me permission to share his post on my blog. From Bhakta David: "I always love serving the deities in the flower department. I remember a few years back when I was in PV (Prabhupada Village) for Janmastami. There weren’t many devotees around that year. I picked marigolds all day a couple days before and made all the garlands for decorating the altar and vyasasana. I spent many hours stringing marigolds by myself while listening to Srila Prabhupada's lectures. I also made massive pamades (big round spheres of marigolds to hang from the garlands as added accents). It was so blissful for me. I was extremely tired at the end, but I couldn’t sleep! When I laid down to rest that night I wept with joy because I was overwhelmed with emotion having served so intensely for days. What a gift Prabhupada Village has been for me. Hari Hari!"