Namaste, Why should I seek God in this birth with unholy past? I.e. It really hurts when seeing people on the spiritual path in their twenties. while myself, struggling to cope with bad habits, thoughts, for finding job, and self doubt at the end of adulthood. My thoughts now days are, focusing on good karma, developing character, doing charity & avoiding God (for not giving discriminative faculty early) so i would be given this path or discriminative faculty earlier in next life. Om! Om
—Anonymous, India
Dear Friend,
Sanatan Dharma, taught in various forms and languages throughout the world, declares “Tat twam asi.” Thou art THAT. The life within you, the intelligence, and the feeling all are manifestations of the One. Why imagine you would want to avoid God who is your very Self? This Atman is eternal, neither young nor old. If you will but open your heart to the divine within you, time will stand still. In the beloved Gita, Krishna assures us that even at the moment of death if our mind and heart are focused on Him, He will come to us.
In the life of Paramhansa Yogananda, he met an elderly woman in her eighties. She had been a self-declared atheist all her life. One moment in meeting the master changed her life. In the few years she had remaining she chanted his name and his chants and achieved freedom.
The efforts you are making to improve your life are to be praised. God has and IS all things but your attention, your interest, your love and devotion He has not unless you willingly offer them. This is the free will gift we have been given to withhold or give to Him at any time. God will not impose upon us for He is humble and yet so great. Will you not seek Him who has awaited what might seem an eternity of past lives? “Forget the past,” Sri Yukteswar (Yogananda’s guru) would console him. “The vanished lives of all men are dark with many shames. Human conduct is ever unreliable until anchored in the Divine. Everything in future will improve if you are making a spiritual effort now.”
Be of good cheer. If you only knew how much God loves you, you would die for joy!
Nayaswami Hriman
