How does one know if he's making spiritual progress ?
How does one know if he’s making progress in spiritual life?
Answer by HH Radhanatha Swami
Very interesting question. I’d like to answer the question a little deeper than we would usually reply. Material attachment is like a fever and that fever is the symptom of the disease of forgetfulness of the Lord within. When we are not finding satisfaction and fulfillment with the eternal pleasure of our very being, we are constantly grasping and searching for the temporary flickering pleasures of this superficial world. So, to the degree that we are attached to material sense enjoyment, to that degree we can understand that we are being inflicted by the fever of material life, and therefore we are in a spiritually unhealthy condition. Therefore, to the extent we find fulfillment in a simple life, in a humble life, to the degree we find joy within ourselves; to that degree we become indifferent to the pleasures and pains, the honors and dishonors, the happiness and distress, the heat and cold of this world. So, to the degree the fever of attachment is going down, to that degree we can understand we are making spiritual progress.
Now, if we are seriously sick, we should approach a doctor, because he knows the nature of the disease and he knows the cure. Of course, we know the natural form of remedy is the most effective, ultimately, for curing disease. Every doctor will give us a certain diet and a certain medicine. The diet is to only eat pure spiritual foodstuffs that are in the mode of goodness, not foodstuffs that are the products of violence. We should eat fresh, live and simple foods, which minimize pain to other living beings, and take that fresh and pure foodstuff and offer it to the Lord with devotion. When we offer it to the Lord that food becomes prasad. It becomes the mercy of God. That very food purifies our body and our mind and our soul. Along with the diet the doctor gives us a medicine. The most simple and practical medicine is the Name of God. You see, we are all children. There are various forms of yoga. There are various forms of discipline. But some of them taste very bad. Some of them are very difficult. In the Gita, Arjuna says, “It seems that the mind is more difficult to control than the wind.” To control the mind and senses through the various processes of yoga is often very, very difficult. No doubt it works, but it is very difficult.
Now, if you are a child, sometimes a doctor will give you a special tablet which is very easy to take, a children’s tablet. In other words, they have the same effect, but they taste good. Right? They’ll take the same aspirin, but they’ll put in candy coating. Or they will take the same natural herb, but they will put it in something very, very flavorful, so that the child will take it and take it regularly. Spiritually, we should humble ourselves and accept that we are all children. Who agrees that spiritually we are children? You can raise your hand. Who feels that they are spiritually, a very, very highly developed adult? So really, today we should feel like we are back in kindergarten. We are children. So why not admit we are children and accept what is for us? All the potency of the results of meditating for lifetimes and lifetimes in the peaks of the Himalayas, in complete solitude, fasting, performing strict celibacy—all the results can be attained in a few short years, in a few short days, in a few short moments, if you are sincere, by simply calling out sincerely the Name of God. So this is a simple medicine which is digestible and palatable for all. And when the fever goes down, then we know we are getting better, because I know you are very sincere. Sometimes when we take to the spiritual path, it seems that the fever is going up instead of down. How many have had this experience? Why is this? We think that maybe it doesn’t work, maybe the medicine is not the right medicine. Maybe the food is not the right food. “Here I am, living a very wholesome and simple life, and I’m living a very, very strict life according to the disciplines of the guru. And it seems that my mind is going crazy for material enjoyment. I never wanted material enjoyment more than this, even when I was living with my mother and father, watching television all day.” How many of you sometimes think like this? This is an advanced platform. Do not expect everyone to have this experience. But what this is—you have heard of healing crisis? In naturopath medicine, before you get better, you get worse. Do you know about this? When you take antibiotics, what does it do? It’s like an atomic bomb that destroys everything good and everything bad. Right? And you feel good. “I’m better. I’m better. I’m better.” Then a few weeks later the fallout comes. But in natural medicine, we don’t care about how you feel now. We care about curing the disease. What happens is a healing crisis, and you need a good doctor to take you through this healing crisis. Otherwise, this can be very dangerous. You could start thinking, “What’s happening to me?” What happens is that all the bad things come out within in our heart, all of our sinful desires, all of our lust and our greed and our envy and our pride, all of our anger and our illusion. And we don’t even know how much is there. Every now and then we get a glimpse of all the bad things in our heart. Just like when you go to the ocean, every now and then you see a fish. You say, “Ah, there’s a fish.” But that’s not all the fish. The rest of the fish, you cannot see, but they’re there. So sometimes there’s some bad desires or some bad thought which impels us to some bad activity. It’s like some fish going (fish sounds) and we think, “Ah, look at this. I have this bad thing in my heart.” But that’s just what comes to the surface. What else is underneath the ocean of your material conditioning? My God, it’s frightful to even think of. But all those things have to come out before our heart is pure. That is called the healing crisis. You may have stored up diseases that are in unmanifested stages deep, deep, deep in the cells of your system. Through fasting and natural medicine these things start coming out, and you’re terribly sick, sicker than you were before you started fasting. It is the process of cleansing. In spiritual life we must also be cleansed. We must clean our body through bathing, through fasting, through eating pure and wholesome foodstuffs. We must heal our mind by associating with persons who encourage us to the virtues of life, and we must heal our soul with the Name of God. Sometimes all those unwanted desires and all those dirty things within us are just pouring out, and the fever gets so much that we think we’re about to explode on fire. But if we use our intelligence we tolerate it, and continue the process of purification until we are healed, until we are clean.
There is a story in Caitanya Caritamrita about a big festival called Ratha Yatra. This is in Jagannath Puri. To this day, this is the biggest festival in the whole world, besides Kumbha-mela. Two years back, we went to Kumbhamela. It is a big festival at the confluence of the Ganges, the Yamuna and the Saraswati, and it takes place every twelve years. It’s a very holy day. Actually it lasts one month. And on the three days within the month which are most auspicious according to astrological calculations, fifteen million people come to congregate there and bathe in the sacred waters, and offer their prayers and devotion to God. Fifteen million people! Not even the Rolling Stones can get so many people. How many can they get? Twenty thousand. Thirty thousand? Fifteen million people! This means that God is still the number one star. (Laughter) He still gets the biggest draw even in this age of darkness. That means there is still hope for great light. So in Caitanya Caritamrita there is described another festival which takes place. It is called Ratha Yatra and hundreds and hundreds of thousands come. The form of God, Krishna, is brought from one temple to another. Before it’s brought to the other temple, there is a very big festival where everyone comes and cleans. They spend the entire day just dusting and dusting and dusting and dusting for hours and hours, and then washing it with housands and thousands and thousands of buckets of water, and hundreds of people scrubbing and scrubbing. This is actually the process of how to invite God into the temple of our heart. The Lord is within our heart, but if we want to offer Him a pleasurable seat within our heart by which He will reveal Himself, we must make our heart a beautiful and clean temple for His residence. Now, when you clean a temple or even when you clean a house, before it gets clean, what happens? It looks like a total mess. As long as there’s dust on the floor you don’t see it. You see a little dust, but then when you start dusting, what happens? It’s everywhere. When you start scrubbing and cleaning, if somebody walks in and says, “My God, your house is a total mess.” And you say, ‘”It looks like this because I’m cleaning it.” So that is how we have to clean our hearts. We have to let all the dust rise to the surface and then remove it. But if we know that we are properly following the proper path led by a proper spiritual guide in our life, then we can know for sure, with complete faith, that we are making spiritual advancement. We are gradually purifying our hearts, purifying our minds, purifying our bodies, purifying our lives, and coming to that ultimate goal of complete purity; for all the clouds of unwanted desires are removed, and the pure sun of pure love shines through us to give light to the world.
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