Shirdi and happiness (contd)

The tide of emotions went from down to up on this thursday...the confusion about whether i'm going in the right direction and whether happiness can ever be lasting paved way to devotion and love for baba...the bhajan time went to ecstasy where my mind was concentrating and having visions of baba...i was magically taken over to shirdi and i could imagine being part of the shirdi folks et al...i was also meditating on lord rama and lord krishna...i was concentrating on the krishna in the child form, his dance with gopika's and lord shri rama with his bow and arrows...somehow, i always have this vision of lord rama with his bow and arrows drawn out...i personally feel this as lord rama using his bow and arrow to chase away the daemons that torment me in my head...of course, little does he know that in aiding a guy like me, he has to stand like that all the time :-)))

      

Now, coming to the more serious part....i was feeling low last week wondering on how come i have not changed even after knowing baba for 17 years...i felt that may be i have wasted my life by not becoming more spiritual and not by training myself to be more detached...it was not against baba, but i felt, what use is my life if god blesses me with holy companionship and yet my mind refuses to settle down? After some more contemplation, 17 years doesn't seem that long after all, considering that this process takes thousands of janma's to bear fruit...it is more of an evolutionary process which definitely takes time...however, this shouldn't become an excuse to slack or to comfort myself...this utter disgust for materialism should grow slowly, but not to turn me into a cynic but into a spiritual path...i'm not proud of the things that i have done in my life, but neither am i ashamed...what ever i have gone through has happened to me for a reason...

The real conundrum is how do you train yourself to not get attached while u are immersing yourself? i pray for like 10~15 minutes a day and then work for 8 hours...how will my brain be spiritual? Also, i have this obsession (some call it passion) to be the front runner and some times it makes life too challenging, too short to take a break...i know all of this, yet mind rules...so, the question of how does a person who is genetically very competitive attain spiritual bliss? Does this mean that he cannot go by the old adage of living life as a house holder and yet attaining spirituality? Does this mean that he needs to abandon the society and go, live life as a hermit in a secluded place...i'm not mentioning an ashram because a competitive guy will find ways to be competitive even there...Don't know? I wish it were the movies and that there was this one song or a brief moment where i challenge god and he shows up and answers my question and invokes something that changes my perspective straight away...but it doesn't happen like that....rather it will take a very painful and slow analysis, stretching, fumbling and a conscious effort to train myself...

let us hope this was a more realistic take on things!