Spiritual life in the young age?

[guru]

Excerpt from a lecture by HG Devamritha prabhu on Saturday 17th January 2004 -

 

Why should we take to spiritual life in the young age?

 

This session is meant for the youth. Not youth in age, but youth at heart.

 

1. We can die at any time. There is no rule that one will die only at ripe old age. Canakya Pandita says, if you want to be strong in spiritual life, you should think that you are going to die next moment. And if you want to be successful materially, you should think you will never die. Otherwise you cannot survive. If you want the goal to be an illusion, your initial assumption should also be an illusion.

 

2. The senses, mind, intelligence are all very strong and easier to learn anything new. It's very difficult to learn anything new in the old age. "You cannot teach old dog new tricks".

 

3. Anything valuable should be offered fresh. Sometimes people think that, when young one should enjoy sense gratification. And when one is old and is invalid, one can offer himself to Krishna. If you want to offer a rose as a gift to someone dear to you, you don't offer it when it is stale or dry. You offer it when it is fragrant and fresh. Similarly one should offer one's service to the Lord when fresh and young.

 

4. At a young age, we can make faster progress either materially or spiritually. At young age, one can learn the spiritual process quickly and practice them for perfection easily. One cannot do the same at older ages.

 

5. Youth is an age of high energy. So it has to be channelized properly. At a young age, we feel highly energetic and are ready to do anything. And if this high energy is not properly channelized, we can create havoc to our lifestyle.

 

6. Life is a preparation and death is the examination. For ex. If we as a student don't study and the night before the examination, we ask our friends what are the syllabus for the exam, etc. Rarely we can get through the examination. Similarly, if we don't prepare for the exam called death, we will be bewildered. And we should not wait till the point of old age/ death.

 

7. When we are young, we can train easily. Training in an early age is very easy. As the mind is flexible, it's easy to train. Old people have already garbage filled in their brains and it is very difficult to train the process.

 

8. The responsibility of youngsters is less. When we are young, the only obligation is education. As we are older, responsibilities of family life/ work etc are more and one does not get enough time to learn spiritual life.

 

9. Youth is the time to make habits. During the youthfulness, we make many habits based on our friend circle. Every activity that we do makes an impression in our consciousness. Ex. If once you drink alcohol, that makes an impression and we will be forced to accept this later. There is a saying - "If you do anything 21 days consecutively, that becomes an habit". Unless we make the right habits, it is difficult to remove them. "Bad habits die hard".

 

10. In childhood, Consciousness is a blank slate. You can write anything in it. As we grow older, the consciousness is filled with filth. In childhood, it is easier to be simple and learning Krishna consciousness is very easy.

 

11. At younger ages, we accept someone superior to us (natural). At older ages, it is difficult to accept someone superior to us.

 

12. If today's youths are not trained.. When they grow up, they create the next generation. And definitely the new generations will not be trained. Sometimes, we find that parents come to the temple and inform us that their children speak lies, steal etc. But the parents themselves don't want to change and they expect the children to be pure.

 

13. According to Sri Prahlada Maharaja and sastras, Spiritual life should be started at balya. Infact, Sri Prahlada started his krishna consciousness in the womb of his mother.

 

14. Definition of Old Age - Means time before death. But no body knows when we are going to die. This is the reason, we always say, we are 15 years old boy or 20 years old girl. We ask how old are you. And not how young are you. Every moment we are becoming old. If someone says that spiritual life has to be taken at old age. We are already old.

 

15. During old age, the physical body gives lots of problems. The health is not good.

Predominantly, the topic of discussions among the old people is health. I have back pain, stomachache, digestion problem etc. So we cannot concentrate on spiritual life.

 

16. Death is badly painful. It is compared to the pain caused by 70000 scorpions biting. If we are not trained to be a devotee, we will have to face this pain.

 

17. Every age has a natural inclination to do certain things. Sri Sankara sings...

 

Boy hood - Attachment for playing

Youth Hood - Attachment for opposite sex.

Old Age - Attachment for global problems, What will happen to wife, family, country, society, creation etc without me? Where is the time for attachment to God?

 

18. Sometimes so called elderly people say that young age is for sense enjoyment. Then when one is old, they will have natural renunciation and that will last long. By doing sense gratification and facing the pain, they will have the realization of renunciation. But just because of pain, there is no renunciation. Ex. Many mothers complain that the labor pain is severe that they will never want another child. But again after sometime, same thing happens.

 

According to Canakya pandita,

 

lalayet panca-varsani

dasa-varsani tadayet

prapte tu sodase varse

putram mitra-vad acaret

 

One should fondle his son up to the point of five years old. Thereafter one should administer punishment for the next ten years. But when one's son reaches the age of sixteen one should act as a friend towards him.

 

One extra point - Why should one wait till the old age to experience the bliss of sankirtana, association of devotees, and Prasadam?