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.