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To Develop Inner Life We Have To Patiently Struggle And Work Hard

If we are to develop our inner life, we have to struggle and work hard, painstakingly and patiently. Nothing will be achieved by saying we have no time to pray or meditate. It is absolutely essential for our spiritual health and growth. There is no other way. If we do not do that, what is the alternative? For the answer to that we need only to look at the sorry state of the world today.

All who have found real peace have followed this path of struggle for spiritual growth. Don’t forget that. They paid the full price and their efforts were crowned with success. The full price means that you will not all at once or easily achieve success. One has to be prepared to go slowly and steadily. Nothing worthwhile can be obtained without giving a price for it. Cheap things are dear in the long run. But if one persists steadily and patiently in spiritual practice, one’s conscience awakens until one finds that the truth is one’s God and the whole universe is one’s home. One’s dedicated spirit – spirit of unselfishness – has grown so much, one embraces the whole world with love. Then truth is no longer a task. Truth is as spontaneous as the breath of one’s life. That is called the highest state of realization.

Every moment we have to discriminate if we want to develop our spiritual life – between the right and the wrong. We have to try to practice, to follow the right. In the beginning we shall fail many times, so we must remember that this is the nature of life, the nature of spiritual struggle. We have to awaken our consciences until they become more and more sensitive. And for that we require some amount of prayer and meditation. Both are necessary.

If we try to live life always following the right, we will find we often compromise and make mistakes. So then we are forced to pray to God, to a higher power for help. We find that prayer or meditation is absolutely necessary.

In the present-day world many will say: ‘We have no time for prayer and meditation.’ Yet we have time for everything else. The truth of the matter is not that we do not have the time, but rather we think that spiritual success will come all of a sudden from the sky.

An Indian writer, who in youth was agnostic but who late in life developed spiritual faith, said he used to think that to realise God would not take as much effort as learning how to play cards! Many persons think that way. As soon as they embark on the pursuit of the religious ideal – which is a hard and protracted task – they begin to ask dejectedly, ‘When will it come?’ – as if spiritual growth can be purchased easily like things in a department store.

So, to develop inner life we have to patiently struggle and work hard.