Soul searching is required now not later
Please believe me, we are all defined by our dominant emotion. The main ones are lust, greed, anger and hate. Out of these, lust is the most common and harmful. Lord Krishna has spoken about lust, anger and greed as three doors to hell (the Bhagavad Gita, verse 16.21). And the Lord has termed the jealous and mischievous as the lowest among men (14.19). Specifically, the Lord has singled out lust as the worst enemy of humanity.
The reasons are obvious. “It is lust only that devours, and is a great sinner. Know this to be the enemy of the world.” (3.37) “By this insatiable fire in the form of lust, which is the eternal enemy of a knowledgeable person, knowledge is covered.” (3.39)
I have quoted these verses because no one other than God could have explained the gravity of the situation better. I am an avid reader of the Gita. A few decades ago, I decided to take shelter in God to fight against my dominant emotion of lust. By the way, lust is of many kinds, like lust for wealth, power, fame and sensuous attractions. We all have weaknesses for all these, but one of them dominates and defines us.
Taking shelter in God and remaining in His shelter are not the same. Many take shelter in God for different reasons. Lord Krishna has explained, “Four kinds of virtuous people worship Me. These are a distressed person, an inquisitive person, a seeker of wealth and a wise person.” (7.16) I realised over a period of time that I fitted all these descriptions of taking God’s shelter. Therefore, I had to do better; I graduated from taking shelter in God to remaining in the shelter of God. I began to sincerely pray for Him to take charge of me.
This is when my transformation began. My Lord, convinced of my sincerity, took me under His care. He began working on my nature. The deep-rooted aspects don’t change like habits of eating, etc., can be changed. Only God can help in changing the deep-rooted ones because He alone knows our real weaknesses and our deep desires. He knows what will really move us, which will make us agree to take the pain for their change. And plenty of pain of reformation is required to get the nature changed. My Lord has a wonderful system of reformation. He punishes me with my bad karmaphalas (fruits of deeds) coming to fruition, and He rewards me with good karmaphalas on alternate days. This way, I have kept on going. The result is unbelievable; I am very satisfied with my progress.
No one should wait any longer. Soul-searching is required to be done urgently regarding what is one’s most pronounced personal weakness. Nobody else needs to know except God, and He already knows. Begin praying for help till God accepts these prayers for reformation. The beneficiary will know because a mirror will be shown to remind one of the weakness. Shame for oneself and anger towards God will both surface; tolerate them. Reformation has begun, with God in control.
The writer is a spiritual teacher; Views presented are personal.
