VEDA

So it is our motivation, good or bad, that determines the fruit of our actions. Shantideva said:

  Whatever joy there is in this world
  All comes from desiring others to be happy,
  And whatever suffering there is in this world
  All comes from desiring myself to be happy.

This poem (by Satya Sai Baba) is to be remembered and etched in your heart, mind, soul and practiced.

  Destroying pride  man becomes endearing;
  Destroying anger  man gets rid of sorrow;
  Destroying desire man acquires peace;
  Destroying greed  man achieves happiness.

Thus, the path to eternal freedom consists of three main steps :

Pravritti (action, external activity) as a method of sublimating the instincts and impulses; Nivritti (detachment, internal quietness) as a method of subduing the thirst of the senses and of the ego; Prapatti (surrender) as a method of utilizing the senses, the instincts and impulses, the intelligence, the emotions, for the glorification of the all-knowing, all-directing Divine.
Do and dedicate; work and worship; plan and protect; but do not worry about the fruit. Follow the three D's : do your Duty without attachment, perform Disciplines to keep the senses under control, and maintain Devotion to God always. This is Dharma and the secret of spiritual success.

Impediments

A common impediment is to become aware of another path and start fresh. It is important that one should take up a path and stick to it. It is foolish to switch paths thinking that the other path may be faster. This can be illustrated by a simple story by Ramana :

'A person wanted to dig a well so that he can drink water whenever he wanted. So, he started digging earnestly and when he reached 20 feet deep, another person came along and told him to start digging at an another spot. So, this man abandoned this spot and went digging at an another spot. When he reached 20 feet and there was no sign of water, he felt despair. He gave up this spot and started digging at another site. Soon, he had many holes of 20 feet deep with no water in sight. He soon died of thirst. If he stuck to digging at one spot, he would have dug him a good well and drank water out of it'.

Hence once one learns a particular path from a guru, and starts to practice it with dedication and devotion he should stick to that path irrespective of what others say about other paths.

Another obstacle is the desire to reveal your progress to others. Scriptures emphasize that a spiritual aspirant should never reveal his experience to an other, except his Guru. He can say that he had never had any such experiences if asked by anyone other than his Guru. There is no use in telling your experiences to a materialistic person, since he is not going to believe you. There is no use in telling it to someone who is not as spiritual as you are, since he may try to emulate your experience (which he shouldn't because each has an unique experience) or become envious of you. There is no use in telling your experiences to a spiritually advanced being because he may have already experienced it or he has no use for it. Your Guru, since he/she knows you intimately, may be able to interpret the experience for you, but no one else can.

While being very much aware of the absolute superiority of the spirit over the material, and the spiritual consciousness within himself, the aspirant will frequently will be constantly confronted by the karmic elements of his incarnation bringing him sorrow, bitterness, and even despair!!! However, the true path is never lost for someone who has started the journey. Even the material world may drag you away for a short while, but the erring son will be returned to the father [Jesus]. As Ramana Maharishi used to say, 'Who once enters on the Path cannot lose it, just as the prey which falls into the tiger's jaws will be never allowed to escape'.

Besides these obstacles, one arrives at a time when one has to make decisions about his life and asks questions which are called "two-path" questions. One such question is whether we should retaliate against people who harm us ? One answer is no, love them, but avoid them. The other answer is 'Turn the other cheek' [Jesus]. Yet an another answer is that we should uphold our Dharma (duty) even by fighting but not worry about the result [Krishna]. Another question is whether we should tell about our path to people who query on our new way of life and resist our change ? One answer is no, the path should be a secret. The other answer is 'Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and to God, the things that are God's' [Jesus]. One can give many similar examples, but no one can say what is right, apart from yourself.

Apart from these "two-path" obstacles are obstacles from our mind with endless why's. Why does a soul need a body to liberate ? Why can't we glimpse at the end of the path everyday ? If sensual pleasures and the material world are obstacles, why did God create them [if He did] in the first place ? Anyone who is stuck in this duality is urged to read Zanoni by Bulwer Lytton. The easiest and the best answer is to look at your own consciousness. As Plotinus in Enneades said 'Enter into thyself and look; and if thou are not beautiful, do as the sculptor with his statue : he smooths this line, he planes another, giving a nobler expression, until the whole becomes the resplendent picture of perfect beauty. And thou shouldst do the same.'

Meditation

If you have never meditated then the book Meditation by Eknath Easwaran is a good place to start. This book illustrates how by constant practice of meditation, one can come to know that he is neither the body nor the mind but the I is self which is pure and divine. The book, though meant for novices, provides a great deal of insight into applying meditation in everyday life and provides common sense directions for an uncommon life, as the subtitle of the book says. Other good books for beginners are written by Lawrence LaShan, Kathleen McDonald, and John Novak. All the three have written different books under the same title How to meditate. Another good book on meditation for the non-spiritual non religious reader is Relaxation Response by Benson.

It should be clear to any aspirant that meditation is the only way and reading books are not going to help you directly. As Swami Nityananda used to say, 'A mind can make thousand books, but thousand books cannot make a mind'. I meditate, therefore I am.   

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