Lovely post Steve. To hear of your increasing contentment is indeed encouraging. I'm a relative newbie, entered the path in 2002, sarted with kriya in 2004 and baptism was in 2005. I enjoyed the blissful honeymoon of a couple of years and then the trouble began. I'm hoping you might appreciate what I mean...the restlessness, the dry periods, the where is my will periods...I've pushed through all of this and am currently in a stabilised period with good regularity but few results.
I like your comparison to A.A...another spiritual hive with emphases and effort as being a key to progress. I'm certainly not content with what I am...I'm working on it...but I have desires to be further along this demanding path of ours. Those desires clash with negative habits...but I just read in Divine Romance that if we continue to struggle we are progressing. Well, there's lots of struggle in my life at present so here's hoping...
Jai Guru
Ja Ma
Doesn't God give most of us a come on when we get started on the path? Than we go thru periods of spiritual trials and self development that are very hard to fathom by the mind/ego and it's limited capabilities of tolerance. i have put a lot of self reflection on this topic. Just last nite i had a long meditation that the ego and senses resisted. But my spirit gets weary of all the sobbing. The soul soldiers have come to battle with all this self pity.
What i have noticed is that my attitudes have gone thru a metamorphosis over the years. If we find ourselves slowly liberated from desire we are making progress. You are able to see the problem. When we start seeing the problem than we start realizing how the problem is upsetting our lives. When this happens we look for solutions. Slow by slow we pull these rotten teeth out of our consciousness.
i see results in some very different guises these days. One of the most important ones is that i see a very significant change in my environment. Many of the old die hard habits were associated with people who were in my life. Many of these people have fallen out of my life. It seems as though i have entered a school of higher learning. The halls are filled with saints friends and aquaintances who are moving closer and closer to the lite.
i rejoice in the fact that i have new friends like you, dear brother, another soul soldier who understands the plight we have taken on during this life and perahaps others; Nothing shorter than enlightenment is our goal and freedom from delusion and maya. We/i must remember that we/i have fought many wars in my/our past incarnations. Sometimes we have tasted the intoxicating taste of sweet victory which has taught us we can overcome and other times defeat which has brought the bitter sweet lesson of compassion and understanding. Now we see where the battle really has it's source~All this drama has been created and manifested by our own consciousness for the stage of liberation to take place. We can be heroes. But it is a fallacy to think we can do it on our own. There are too many villains who will disrupt our understanding and peace. We have our friends, saints and the Master's to help us and our own soul calling for liberation and freedom.
Jitendra
