Everything else can wait, but your search for God cannot wait. – Sri Sri Paramahansa Yogananda ji – Author of ‘Autobiography of a Yogi’.
For me, the above words are the greatest reminders to give me reason for inner-searching. The great saint’s words assist me in all my states – whether I am whinging or content, whether I have remained disciplined or become indisciplined in my spiritual routine.
Perhaps the most chronic malfunction a human being can suffer from is to delay his search for God. Take the case of most of us; our unending cravenness for worldly attachments and possessions is almost like a thoroughly spoilt child’s tantrums. Often, at a throwaway price, we waste our precious time in potentially spurning it away on fruitless things. Dark hues of greed and competitiveness churn us in a rat-race-stream of stress and turbulence. If only, we can duly understand the importance of spirituality! If only, we can spare time to realize the meaning of spirituality! If only, we can stop and gaze inwards! (This is the exact dialogue I am continually having with myself). Then surely, very surely the lamp of faith will glow to show us the ways to search for God… Who is waiting for us to apply and be supplied with the positive energy of spirituality.
A measure of scepticism arises in many individuals who feel investing time for God’s search is not a sign of practical success. Where is the time? The time to start the chapter on God and gurus? They feel, all this could only distract their crucial leadership that is giving credit to their rising careers. They have a black flag to raise saying: their ambitions will diminish or recede to shove them into some curious cave forbidding them to grow and claim their prized dreams. On the contrary… on the contrary, a spiritually enlightened person gains the rewards of Life’s purpose in greater dimensions. Greed and anger will be replaced by self-discipline and charity; fear of losing or failing will vanish. Spiritually wise men have learnt to endure the opposites like pain and pleasure with equanimity ─ knowing that these come and go. Peace will follow from act to act, from thought to thought: in the daily routine. The column of knowledge that comes from following God’s path has drawn great achievers. So why wait? The Good-News-Bible reveals: Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you.
‘So Why Wait?’ I am telling this to myself…
Geeta Chhabra
