Sunday, March 16

(HH Kadamba Kanana Swami, Radhadesh, Belgium, April 2012) Lecture: CC Madhya-lila 200-250

On a day like today’s Vyasa Puja festival, you are looking at a room full of people and you see a percentage of very enthusiastic new people. There is a group who are going to take initiation and so on. On a day like today, they really are ready to commit themselves. We see brahmacaris in saffron, which is suitable for the Queensday and one needs some orange sunglasses to deal with it! The kirtans are explosive and fuelled up with fired up energy!

Then I think of those who are not here, because I am sitting here and also looking at those who didn’t come! Oh, this one didn’t come. Oh, a few years ago this one was really jumping upfront and this year he didn’t come – he had to work, hmmm, okay a few years ago hell or high water that person came. It is like that, and we are all experiencing it like that…

No, I am not saying that up to the age of eighty everyone has to jump up and down with the same enthusiasm that the twenty year olds are having.  It’s not that you can never stay home and that it is a mortal sin if you haven’t come, but the relationship has to always remain fresh. It has to be renewed again and again. The tendency is there to sort of drift a little bit to the side from that wholehearted commitment to the spiritual master. It’s not casual. It’s not about a button on the bead bag. It goes a lot deeper! It’s not just about:

‘Yes ,I am following my spiritual master.’

It’s about:

‘I’m really trying hard to invest in that relationship.’

And that’s the one thing that is really going to make it happen. That’s the one thing which is the tipping point in spiritual life, where one goes from bhakti without nectar to bhakti with nectar, and that is a division made by Kavi-karnapura, which I like and think is crucial. So once there is bhakti with nectar then, yes it becomes easier and easier.

So today I am kind of trying to inspire that. We must try to increase our commitment! I often explain that it doesn’t need to be a very big thing. It doesn’t necessarily need to be the thing that is the most difficult, but just add something that is easy. Do a little thing that is sort of easy to do, and add that. Then do another little thing that is also easy to do. Because if we do many little things that are relatively easy, then we tighten up our commitment in these easier areas, so suddenly we find that it gives us the strength to make bigger a commitment!

So if there is a big hurdle, which we cannot overtake then start to do things that increase our commitment, that is necessary. That is the ultimate point for all of us to go beyond our point of weakness!

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