Ashwin Shukla Dvitiya, Budhvar, Vikram Samvat 2068
The Main Obstacle to Spiritual Discipline
The main obstacle to spiritual discipline is your attachment to the pleasures that you derive from the contact of your senses with their objects. You derive pleasure from the world and get pleased in favorable circumstances – this itself is the obstacles to your spiritual path. If you derive pleasure even from the spiritual practices and feel satisfied with it, your spiritual progress is hindered. As the modes of passion and ignorance bind man (spirit), so does the mode of goodness bind by attachment to happiness "Sukhasangena badhnaati" (Gita 14/6) . It is a fact that if you renounce your attachment to pleasure, you will be free from all sorrows and sufferings and you will attain the supreme bliss. The is the absolute truth ! It is a very solid point. If attachment to pleasures goes away, then you will attain eternal joy, all sorrows will come to an end. The pleasure that you derive from prestige, honor, contact with sense-objects and favorable circumstances is the main obstacle. If a person shows bravery and does not get attached to pleasures, he can make spiritual progress very quickly. Total renunciation of attachment to pleasures leads to progress naturally and automatically. The Lord declares –"Tyaagaacchaantiranantaram" "Peace immediately follows renunciation" (12/12). This is something very important.
I kept giving lectures for a number of years. I listened to divine discourses and gave discourses, I even studied the scriptures and holy books for several years but could not discover where is the obstacle and why is there obstacle to spiritual progress? Many years passed by, after which I discovered what the issue was. Therefore, I have explained it to you so that you may not remain in the dark. You can't attain peace without renouncing attachment to pleasure. Even if you take delight in peace, you will not attain the supreme bliss (salvation). If you want to attain salvation, if you want liberation, then you will have to renounce attachment to pleasure. You will have to renounce prospect, hope, desire for pleasure. You will have to renounce enjoyment of pleasure. It is a confirmed fact that without renunciation you can't attain peace. The Lord declares – "Ye hi sansparshajaa bhogaa dukhayonaya eva te" (Gita 5/22) "All the pleasures that are born of contact (with objects) are only sources of pain" (Gita 5/22). The so called pleasures indeed are very painful because they deprive a striver of the supreme bliss of God Realization. All kinds of pleasures derived from sense-contacts, honor, praise, comforts, rest and relaxation, hoarding, prosperity, knowledge, wisdom etc. are all based on pride and they are all obstacles to spiritual progress. Neither experience of pleasure, nor knowledge of pleasure is an obstacle, but it is the desire within for pleasures and hope of continuing to get pleasures, which is an obstacle. It is the cause of a lot of the nonsense within us. We feel bad, if someone stands in the way of our pleasures. In this there is one very extra-ordinary point. Gentlemen, others appear bad in our eyes, this itself is the main flaw (defect).
Sukhasy duhkasya na ko'pi daataa
Paro dadaatiti kubuddhiresha |
Aham karameeti vrthaabhimaanah
Svakarmasootragrathito hi lokah ||
(Adhyaatma Ramayana 2/6/6)
"No one gives us pleasure or pain. It is unwise on our part to think that someone else gives us pleasure or pain. It is our false pride if we think that we do something, because people are chained by their own actions."
(to be continued) From book "Ease of God Realization" in English by Swami Ramsukhdasji.
==============================
If in doubt regarding the translation, please read the original Hindi message by Swamiji.
==============================
FOR MESSAGE IN HINDI PLEASE VISITDate : 27th September, 2011 – Saadhan ki mukhya baadha
******************************
IF YOU HAVE BENEFITED FROM THESE MESSAGES, KINDLY FORWARD TO OTHERS.
Ram Ram
HINDI : www.swamiramsukhdasji.org