How Would You Rate The Quality Of Your Spiritual Practice?

[suchandra]

This question is being asked by Mahatma das - start to rate your spiritual performance.

 

Exercise

by Mahatma das (Mahatma.ACBSP@pamho.net)

posted Monday, 10 March 2008

http://gitacoaching.blogspot.com/

 

On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the quality of your spiritual practice last week?

 

If you answered less than 10 I have another question.

 

What would it take to make it a 10?

 

Now write down everything you could do to make it a 10. Don’t think about what is practical, what you are able to do, etc., just write down what your spiritual practice would look like if it were a 10.

 

Now you know what you need to do.

 

Read over your list. How does it make you feel? Enlivened, challenged, scared, lazy, depressed, discouraged?

 

If you have negative emotions that’s ok. You don’t have to ignore them. Often they can help you realize how bad you feel by not taking your spiritual practices seriously. In any case, if you allow your emotions to deter you, it means you need to increase your determination. You can act in spite of your fear, in spite of your doubt. “Arise, o chastiser of the enemies."

 

“Victory belongs to the most persevering.” Napolean

 

And it is said that the road to success is a toll road.

 

I can already hear your mind making excuses, saying, “but --------.”

 

I have an answer for your mind.

 

“A winner is someone who talks himself out of excuses.”

 

Here’s another one to help you through the difficulties

 

“Every noble work is at first impossible."

 

So you roll up your sleeves and start to do more of the things you’ve known all along you should be doing and avoid doing the things you know have been hurting your spiritual life.

 

If down the road your enthusiasm wanes, remember this:

 

“Success is like a garden, It always needs weeding.”

 

And here’s another truism to push you when you are down:

 

“Winners do what losers don’t want to do.”

 

I can hear your mind saying (wow, it’s so loud I can hear it all the way in Alachua), “What if I don’t succeed?”

 

 

“If you are doing your best, you will not have to worry about failure.”

 

There is no failure in Krsna consciousness. The effort itself is the success.

 

“There is only one real failure in life that is possible, and that is to not be true to the best we know.”

 

I know it is hard to change. You look at your list and you see it requires change to improve yourself - and that might make you uncomfortable. But you pay a price for staying the same, for remaining comfortable.

 

If reading this text makes you uneasy, it’s probably because you know you need to change.

 

You have read this far and maybe you haven’t started this exercise yet. Maybe you are not planning to do it. If so, please answer the following question.

 

If you don’t do this exercise, what excuse will you tell yourself?

 

Now look at that excuse, (or list of excuses) very carefully. Study them, contemplate them. They are like gold and diamonds for you because here might be the very secret, the very core of what might be holding your practice back.

 

After each excuse, write the following, “to be more Krsna conscious,” For example, if your excuse is, “I don’t have time,” it should read, “I don’t have time to be more Krsna conscious.”

 

If your excuse is that I am afraid I will fail, your excuse will read, “I am afraid I will fail to be more Krsna conscious.” I think this will help you see your excuses is a different light - or should I say, in the light.

 

“The minute you start making excuses you have lost.”

 

Can you really afford to lose?

[AncientMariner]

I keep it simple and read the Srimad Bhagavatam. Here is one verse I read a lot:

 

SB 5.14.46 Devotees interested in hearing and chanting [śravaṇaḿ kīrtanam] regularly discuss the pure characteristics of Bharata Mahārāja and praise his activities. If one submissively hears and chants about the all-auspicious Mahārāja Bharata, one's life span and material opulences certainly increase. One can become very famous and easily attain promotion to the heavenly planets, or attain liberation by merging into the existence of the Lord. Whatever one desires can be attained simply by hearing, chanting and glorifying the activities of Mahārāja Bharata. In this way, one can fulfill all his material and spiritual desires. One does not have to ask anyone else for these things, for simply by studying the life of Mahārāja Bharata, one can attain all desirable things.

[Sunds]

How Would You Rate The Quality Of Your Spiritual Practice?

Infant stage...

[suchandra]

 

How Would You Rate The Quality Of Your Spiritual Practice?

Infant stage...

Obviously that is the reason why Lord Krishna appears in this world - to give us knowledge.

 

Sometimes we might forget that Krishna says, He has to appear once in a while, "yuge yuge", to re-establish the guru-parampara system because there are occasionally too huge time gaps.

 

Apparently some learned pandits think Krishna has no idea what the sastra is saying because Krishna forgot, "there is always a living guru"?

 

KRSNA-BALARAM, JAIPUR

No, Krishna says, there are gaps. And Srila Prabhupada says that it is the program of "promoting premature so called gurus" which, "destroys the disciplic succession." Just as Srila Prabhupada says the 1936 GM leaders insisted that they need to concoct a pure devotee present at the moment.

 

Sastra further says it is a severe offense to consider that the pure devotee is dead and gone anyway, thus sastra says we can and indeed we must worship an apparently departed guru, especially when he's the current link to the parampara system.

 

Then again sastra says that when there is a gap in the parampara and there is not any living person, worship the last link, proving again that the deviants have never even read the sastra.

 

Who calls their guru "the post-humous dead body" anyway? Where is this found in sastra? No, sastra says it is a severe offense to consider that the acharyas are "dead and gone".

[tackleberry]

By His grace, I've successfully given up meat, ciggies, alcohol, illicit sex, gambling in just a few weeks. The only thing I haven't yet given up is tea. So in a way, it's good progress, I think. But my efforts to learn sanskrit have been a failure, because I've got no access to teachers, guide etc. Krishna, unfortunately, doesn't favor me on this one.

 

And I believe without knowing sanskrit, all spirituality is useless. How can anyone appreciate the beauty of the Gita by reading some superficial English translation? The nectar tastes better with sanskrit.

[Sunds]

 

By His grace, I've successfully given up meat, ciggies, alcohol, illicit sex, gambling in just a few weeks.

 

That is mighty reassuring. You have just strengthened my faith in Krishna. Even I have a few vices which I am trying to overcome.

[suchandra]

 

That is mighty reassuring. You have just strengthened my faith in Krishna. Even I have a few vices which I am trying to overcome.

Sometimes the question is discussed, how to give up attachments without missing something or eventually falling back. In Bhagavad-gita it says, "..........a sincere devotee of the Lord shuns all material sense enjoyment due to his higher taste for spiritual enjoyment in the association of the Lord. That is the secret of success. One who is not, therefore, in Krishna consciousness, however powerful he may be in controlling the senses by artificial repression, is sure ultimately to fail, for the slightest thought of sense pleasure will agitate him to gratify his desires." BG 2.62

 

This is also my experience. The easiest way to increase spiritual enjoyment is to increase chanting of the Holy Name.

[Shivaduta]

 

And I believe without knowing sanskrit, all spirituality is useless. How can anyone appreciate the beauty of the Gita by reading some superficial English translation? The nectar tastes better with sanskrit.

 

Swami praphupada's translation is superb.... in fact i would say it is better than the original as it has many angles and insights... it must be remembered that the original was Narrated by KRSHNA to ARJUN and both the narator and the listener were great souls... unfortunately us common people arent great souls and so a translation with comments of a great soul does help

[tackleberry]

 

Swami praphupada's translation is superb.... in fact i would say it is better than the original as it has many angles and insights... it must be remembered that the original was Narrated by KRSHNA to ARJUN and both the narator and the listener were great souls... unfortunately us common people arent great souls and so a translation with comments of a great soul does help

I have great respect for SP, but I cannot say his translations are the best. In some places, he's changed the meaning completely to prove his point. I'll just give one example, there are many, many more. Take a look at the following BG 12.9 given in vedabase:

 

atha cittaḿ samādhātuḿ

na śaknoṣi mayi sthiram

abhyāsa-yogena tato

mām icchāptuḿ dhanañjaya

 

TRANSLATION

My dear Arjuna, O winner of wealth, if you cannot fix your mind upon Me without deviation, then follow the regulative principles of bhakti-yoga. In this way develop a desire to attain Me.

 

This is not a very honest translation, is it? He's translated abhyaasa-yogena to mean 'regulative principles of bhakti yoga,' when it means nothing more than 'through the practice of yoga,' which is why yogena is in the instrumental case. No mention of regulative principles at all. There are multiple places where he comes with words of his own, instead of offering a simple translation. This, to me, isn't very honest.

[xexon]

Greetings everyone, this is my first post.

 

My spiritual practice is going well. I am of no religion but I follow the handful of spiritual truths that have not changed since the beginning.

 

For me, meditation occurs with eyes open.

 

 

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