Testing Our Spiritual Life
It is normal in human life
that if we put a lot of time and effort into any endeavor, we want to be able
to measure our progress. Whether it is studies, professional life, or business,
we want to know in some way what our score is, how well we are doing. The same
seems to apply to the spiritual life. After we have put in sufficient effort,
sufficient time, there is a factor in us that wants to know whether we are
getting proper results.
Normally that inclination is
discouraged in the spiritual life, and it is discouraged for three reasons. The
first reason is scriptural. "Yours is the effort. The result is up to God.
Leave it to Him." The second reason is a very practical one. There is no
practical way that we can judge whether we are being freed from egoism, lust,
greed, hatred, anger and jealousy or whether divine virtues are developing in
our heart. If we try to keep score, it will normally be a matter of self-deception.
Rather, as Pujya Swami Chidanandaji once said, "From time to time you discover
what changes have come about. Sometimes, this can be a pleasant discovery.
Sometimes it can be rather a shocking one—some negative factor that you thought
had long ago disappeared suddenly comes to life again. Therefore, any judging
we do on our progress should be left to discovery rather than to analysis.
But there is a third reason
that we’re discouraged from trying to keep score on our spiritual life. And
that is that the ultimate spiritual life is at a level deeper than virtues and
vices. One teacher has said that there are only two things, finally, in this
universe: one is love; the other is fear. This love, of course, is not the
normal type of love, but rather a divine love that has no object. It is just
love or perhaps more correctly, it is described as universal goodwill. The
other factor, fear, is also not fear with an object, but rather an underlying
sense of fear that at any moment can light upon an object such as death, old
age, ill health, loss of money, security etc. Therefore, in the final analysis
the only way our spiritual life can be judged is to the degree that universal
goodwill and trust has replaced that nagging feeling of uncertainty or fear in the
depths of our being.
How do we bring about this
ultimate change? There is no other way than a total letting go and trusting in
God. That is why Lord Krishna told us that the only way we can cross samsara
is by taking refuge in Him alone. And even more specifically, in the last
teaching verse of the Gita, He tells us to abandon all dharmas and take
refuge in Him alone.
Therefore, we cannot really
judge our spiritual life by normal measurements. Ours is to make the effort;
the results are in God’s hands. From time to time we discover whether we
have made progress or not, and ultimately the only real test is the degree of
total surrender in the depth of our heart, which means that universal love has
replaced all fear.
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