Baba says, ‘have love for the One and have faith in the One‘. Then you will be free from obstacles and experience the stage of ascent.

There are times when things just don’t seem to go our way. I’ve been following Shrimat, doing the right thing, being my best and yet nothing I touch seems to work. The project doesn’t take off, there is one obstacle after another – people who promised to co-operate suddenly back out, finances don’t come through, the required approvals or legalities are taking time. It’s as if the universe is conspiring to stop me from making progress.

Sometimes, it is an illness that forces life to go on pause. Other times, it’s a pandemic! Then, there is a child perhaps that doesn’t seem to be on the right path. Maybe a family member I trusted betrayed me. Life is full of surprises…there is always something or the other…never a dull moment in the drama!

When we are in the grips of any situation, we can tend to think: has God forgotten me? Why is this happening to me? This is classic Maya! She uses situations to sow the seed of doubt, to make me believe that God is not on my side. And when I don’t get an answer to that all draining question of ‘why’, I resort to the catchall answer: it’s just my karma! I must have committed a lot of sin in the past…there is nothing God can do!

Baba says, ‘have love for the One and faith in the One‘. Never make yourself alone.

I am not meant to carry such heavy burdens by myself. Life is not meant to be this hard and yet, inadvertently, I make it hard for myself when I make myself alone, separate from God. He has given me the knowledge of who I am but also of Who He is. Through His Murli, I get insight into His mind, how He thinks, how He operates. Even more importantly, I have my own life experiences to reflect on to know how He has always been with me.

If a project is not taking off, if there are obstacles coming, can I have the maturity to understand that perhaps this is not the right project for me i.e. there may not be benefit for me in this or that perhaps, this is not the right timing for it? Can I remember those times in the past where I was disappointed something didn’t work out only to realize weeks or months or years later that it was for my own good? Something so much better inevitably happened or I found out that the company I was applying to for a job went under or that delay spared me from an accident….God is with me always even when I don’t feel it. Let me not be moved by feelings, let me be moved by what I know, by faith.

Sometimes, things are delayed because I am not ready yet. God is using the delay to prepare me – maybe my character needs to be stronger, I need to build courage or become less sensitive so that I am able to face opposition or handle influence when I come into it in the future. I don’t know what I’m going to need but my Father does. He is preparing me so that when I do step into opportunity, I am able to sustain myself. Let me learn to trust Him. When I tune in to the drama, into what He is doing, I learn to thank Him for the delays, not just the breakthroughs.

But human tendency is that we don’t like delays, we don’t enjoy the feeling of being held back. It’s especially hard when I look around and others seem like they are doing great! So I get impatient and decide to take matters into my own hands. I think: maybe if I schmooze, talk to so-and-so, they will do something for me, maybe if I work harder, do more…I take the reins of my life out of God’s hands thinking I can do better! Can that work? Let me make Him my one trust and one support. Let me trust His method and timing. Sometimes we argue: ‘if I could see just a sign that something is happening, it would be easy to stay in faith’. Well, the definition of faith is that I believe, that I trust when I don’t see anything happening. I believe when things aren’t going the way I want.

God doesn’t have to and He never does disclose His plans to us. His ways are His own. Only He knows my whole story and so only He knows what I need to attain my destiny. I co-operate when I trust and get out of the way. I co-operate when I stop snatching the reins from His hands. I co-operate when I stay seated in the boat and stop swimming back to the old shore. He is taking me places I need to go, let me trust.

Yes, as hard as it is to believe, that person that betrayed me, that situation at work where they gave that promotion to someone else despite all the work I did, the financial troubles, the child being off track…all of that is necessary in my journey to reach my destiny. Let me be mature enough to understand that these situations are: (a) not a curse on me (b) not a surprise to God (c) not a delay in my journey (4) not here to defeat me or stop me from attaining my destiny. On the contrary, they are important to my reaching my destiny. No situation in this drama that comes to a Brahmin is useless! it is here to teach me something, to build me up, to push me forward…in fact, to propel me forward. God is using every single moment of my life to ensure I am making progress, He is not asleep, He has not slacked off. He does His most important work in the darkness, when I am hidden, during the delays.

Let me not forget that He is also the Almighty! No situation or person is too big for Him or too big to stop my destiny. We think limited thoughts, based on logic: ‘there is no way I can make progress, this sanskar is too big, I’ve had it too long’, ‘this project can never happen as long as this powerful person is in that position, they will never allow it…’, ‘ I can never overcome this because…’. Let me not worry that the drama or karma or my own mistakes or whatever else has somehow snatched the control of my life from God and that now, God is watching helplessly. No! this is not the Ramayana where Ram watched Sita being taken away helplessly… God is God! He cannot be outdone, He cannot be defeated…and neither can I! I just have to keep the right perspective, the right attitude and stop feeding myself incorrect, negative, defeatist thoughts.

You have taken this journey countless times, He reminds me, and it is I that was your Boatman every one of those times. We are just repeating the process. Can I trust? If I can, then I relax. I enter a place of rest and contentment. I make the mistake of thinking that I will be content when this situation passes or when this person changes or some other reason…but contentment is an attitude, it has nothing to do with the external, it is what I experience despite everything going on. It comes when I make God my one trust and one support, when I love Him and have faith in Him- in Who He is and in His ability to take me to my destiny. He is faithful, let me be the same.