Breathe In

I was speaking to a dear friend today and we were talking about determination and enthusiasm in practicing bhakti yoga. She was mentioning how sometimes she finds it difficult to be steady and I just looked at her and said, "Only sometimes? Wow, you're doing well!"

Isn't it a fact? It's hard to remain consistent and focused on any discipline, what to speak of a spiritual discipline. Practicing mantra meditation, reading and performing some type of service isn't much. But, throw in school/work, family, friends, Facebook (:P) and of course that crazy, turbulent mind and all of a sudden that "isn't much" turns into a heavy burden.

At the end of the day, it really depends on where our priorities lie. At different stages in life, those priorities may shift and we have to be willing to adjust and re-adjust. However, the number one priority should always remain the same- our spiritual sadhana. Whenever I say I'm too busy it's code for: I know I should make my sadhana my priority but either due to laziness or lack of motivation I'm not going to.

So how can I kick out that laziness or lack of motivation? Because let's face it, as bhakti yogis most of us know that our sadhana is what keeps us connected to Krsna and therefore is our lifeline in this ocean of confusion we live in. So it's not a lack of knowledge that's the problem. When this happens to me, I can chalk it up to a lack of inspiration.

For me, inspiration means to see in action what I want to do or be. It means having a role model. Seeing someone walk the talk. That's truly inspiration. It's important to note that of our three-fold check and balance system (Guru, Sadhu and Sastra) two of them are personalities and the third is filled with exemplary personalities.

Looking up the etymology of the word inspiration, I discovered the root is from the Latin word breathe. In fact, to inspire is to "breathe in". Metaphorically that's what we do when we are inspired. We breathe in another person's mentality, outlook, determination, etc, etc... We get rejuvenated by breathing in fresh air and releasing our old, stale outlook. Just as we cannot subsist on stale air, similarly we cannot subsist on degraded thoughts.

In fact, if our air supply was cut off what would we do? We would do whatever it took to locate another source. This is how important seeking spiritual inspiration should be in our lives. We should constantly be searching for it and if for whatever reason we lose inspiration, we should go to any length to find it.

A nice meditation to reflect on the next time you breathe in.