Tremendous Power in Practice - Swami Virajanandaji

There is a Bengali saying: "Bring the food to my mouth; it is too much for me to move!  Bless your fathers and their meritorious acts!"  Nowadays, most people belong to that category.  Nobody wants to exert himself; everybody wants to gain his ends gratuitously or by some crafty trick.  Especially in regard to things spiritual people seek to avoid all effort and toil, which they dislike, and have everything done for them by others.  After sitting with closed eyes for an hour or so, for a few days or a few months, thy grumble and complain, "Alas! I am achieving nothing, I can't collect my mind; I don't feel I am making any progress." And so on.  Swamiji used to say, "Is god a vegetable, a bunch of spinach, or a fish, that you throw down a few coins and buy Him?"  Why be so impatient for immediate results?  Go On striving, and your effort will bear fruit of itself in the fullness of time.  Men of the world pay wages if you work for them; and will not God do so if you work for Him?  Faith, steadfastness, sincere love, patience and perseverance are needed.  Does a seed sprout up into a tree and bear fruit as soon as it is planted?  One has to bestow much toil and attention and continue to do this for a long while before one can reap the fruits in due season.

 
The Reality cannot be attained if one is impatient.  The supreme Self-alone is the only reality, essence and Truth; and everything else – the manifested universe – is unreal, no essence and deceptive, and therefore fit only to be rejected.  Great patience and perseverance are needed for the knowledge of this fact to become established.
 

Even if there are not many good past impressions, favorable ones can be created by virtue of constant effort, earnestness and practice.  There is tremendous power in practice.  Practice becomes firm and abiding if continued long and uninterruptedly with faith and devotion.  Whatever you practice becomes in course of time your second nature.  Then it is no longer necessary to exert yourself to accomplish a desired thing, for it is automatically done.  If you continually practice the remembrance of God, prayer, Japa and meditation, they then come out from the heart, without the exercise of any conscious will or effort, even while you are engaged in other work.  The mind remains pointed that way like the needle of a compass.  Hence attachment to worldly objects disappears and dangers and calamities cannot ruffle the mind of such a person.  Even at the moment of death the mind remains calm and absorbed in God.  Such a one has not to be born and to die again and again, as he becomes merged in the supreme state of Beatitude.

 

Practice japa and austerities with all your heart as much as you can.  You should, however, have it firmly fixed in your mind that God can be realized solely through His grace, and not as a result of your practicing so much Japa and austerities.  Spiritual practices are meant merely for tiring the wings, so to speak.  A bird wants to rest as soon as its wings are tired.  After flying far out over the sea, the bird discovers that there is no other resting place except the mast of a ship, as it perches there.  But unless the feeling tat God is the only refuge grows into an unshakable conviction, no one can take shelter completely in Him and know Him to be his all-in-all.

 

Onward! Onward! Do not look this way or that.  Do not pay the slightest heed to psychic phenomena like the seeing of light or visions, etc.  As you continue practicing meditation, varieties of such occult experiences may come of themselves, and you may see all manner of supernatural things and also derive some joy from them.  But do not stick there; for in that case you will never be able to progress much further.  Always keep your whole attention fixed on the Ideal; and let your whole desire and aim be how to increase your devotion and love for God, how to merge your mind in Him and how to gain direct realization of Him in this life.

 

Go on practicing Japa and meditation with great devotion, perseverance and patience.  Gradually the mind will become tranquil and meditation will deepen.  You will feel a craving for your meditation, so that if you fail to do it any day, everything will taste insipid and you will feel out of joint and extremely uneasy, like and addict mission his drug at the accustomed hour.  You will long to remain immersed in meditation, alone.

Source : Toward the Goal Supreme; Swami Virajananda