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From Lessons
in Discipleship by Swami Kriyananda
from
the May
2003 Daily Meditator
Every devotee
goes through ups and downs on the path. During his ups there are
times when he feels as if God were practically a hair's breadth
away. He only has a bit further to go, and he'll be there. Everyone
goes through such periods where he feels so in tune that he's really,
as it were, just racing towards heaven. Then all of a sudden that
quality is lost, and the clouds roll in again, and he wonders what
ever happened.
We can understand
it this way: as soon as we get a divine state of consciousness,
the strength of delusion is such that we take the blessing to ourselves,
and think that we're special or important. We get a little experience
of God, and instead of expressing appreciation, we start to think,
"Oh, I've got something now. I'm someone special now."
The ego comes in again, and because of this we come crashing down
and have to begin all over again.
The way out
is for all our energies to always be directed towards God. The true
disciple is always thinking only of how he can serve God and guru
more, of what more he can give. If the devotee starts to think of
how he can get more experience or more realization, then he falls
back into delusion. It has to be a constant giving, and in that
giving, God can give us more. It's like a closed circuit that builds
up greater and greater power.
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