Acharya Shree, you have met several serious spiritual seekers. Why do some of them miss their time to grow spiritually?
They... people miss their opportunity for many reason. First of all...
There are many blockages in human's life. Those blockages, they don't let a person grow spiritually at all.
Let me explain those blockages first, and then I will explain more points.
The first blockage is the old age.
When people get old they cannot, uh, follow spirituality or they cannot grow spiritually,
because they didn't begin spiritual practices in early age.
Or, when they were young. Because old age, system is slow down, senses slow down, so they feel sick all the time.
Lack of energy. And second blockage is all the senses.
'Till (while) they work fine, you can grow spiritually. If they, senses are weak, you cannot hear well,
you cannot taste well, you cannot see well. It is kind of blockages on the spiritual way,
because then you cannot read. If you want to read good points, or you cannot hear well
if you want to hear the good points from a master, or from a teacher.
Or, so those are the second blockages, your senses, when they are weak.
Third blockage is, very big blockage, that is sickness.
Most of people, if they are sick, they have certain kind of disease, like, diabetes, like,
high blood pressure, or, kind of, sugar level is high. This kind of sicknesses,
they are blockages already, because even person wants to grow spiritually,
they don't let him or her grow spiritually, those diseases. So these are the three blockages,
and even person is ready, suppose, ten or fifteen years old, a child, a teenager, is wondering,
and curious about what is spirituality. And they begin to read books.
They begin to go to yoga school. Or, they are interested in doing yoga and they feel peace.
Or, they like meditation. And when they get interested into it, they talk about among the family,
and maybe the first blockage, first thing: parents. If they are not interested in yoga or meditation,
parents will think you are going wrong way. They stop the teenagers, or the child's spiritual growth right away.
Because, now you don't have enough confidence and enough strength to fight with them.
And you are easily get influenced by. So, it was your time to grow spiritually, because you are on the right path,
you are enquiring good stuff about spirituality, about meditation.
Or about the peace.
But, the, because there are other people, they give you other points of view.
And you listen to them, and when person begins to listen to others, if they don't have confidence and strength,
it means they are going to lose the opportunity to grow spiritually. So, you have to be careful, even your parents telling you,
"Don't do it, it is, it is not right." So, you have to have strength,
that, "No. If meditation gives me some kind of peace, and some kind of inner realization,
how it can be wrong?" If you cannot argue with them, if you cannot fight with them,
it shows that you are a weak person. And, you will stop your spiritual growth automatically, because
there are other people. Nietzsche was right. Nietzsche always used to say, that,
for him, he said, other is hell. And, I am 100% agree with him.
Other is hell, because if you stick with others and listen their opinion and stop your spiritual growth, it is kind of hell.
So, you have to have lot of strength, and a lot of confidence inside of you, what you are doing, if you are
on right path, you continue on right path. If you are going to listen to others, it means you are stopping your own spiritual growth.
And, it is my experience in life that when someone begins to awaken spiritually, everybody get curious
and everybody try to stop him or her. In the family, or, even all the other relatives. They get curious,
but when person is on the wrong path, is drinking, or taking drugs, nobody cares about it, seems like.
So, it means, because they didn't realize themselves what is spiritual practices, what is
spiritual growth is, so they don't want other person to be spiritual.
Maybe, they are in one little box. Maybe, they are into the religion.
And, religion is the biggest block of spiritual growth. Because religion put you in the small box,
and you never will be out of that small box, unless you are awakened.
And, there are chances in life, there are times in life that you can be awakened. Soul wants to be awakened.
But, there many blockages as I told you already. Old age; don't wait until you get old.
Start right away. Don't wait until you get sick. Start right away, because you never know tomorrow what is going to happen.
Why to waste today? Just start today.
That is your time. And, why to wait until your all senses get weak? Then you cannot do anything.
You cannot hear well, you cannot see well, you cannot taste well, so you will complain.
And, you will never will grow spiritually. These main blockages, and fourth one is your parents.
Or, your relatives or your friends, because that's what they want you to be who they are.
Like, if they are having fun, if they want to go to the clubs, if they want to go to the dancing, they like you to go to that way.
They don't want you to be awakened. They don't want you to be on the spiritual path. That's why it is difficult,
that, and people easily get influenced by, uh, the company they leave. Like, if they leave among the friends
all the friends, suddenly, they talk about, "Oh, what is spiritual path? What is spiritual path?" and they give
their own opinions. And the person get easily influenced by parents, friends, relatives, and they stop their growth.
That is unfortunate for the person, for the soul which wanted to be awakened.
And, now it is stopped by the relatives, and parents, or their friends, really? Or, their enemy?
Maybe it is the enemy, because nobody wants, I suggest, this is my experience, also, if somebody try to stop
someone on the right path. You know how many karma they collect? That is called antaraya karma.
And antaraya karma, that, whatever you will wish in your life you never will get it, because you stopped someone to be good.
You stopped someone who was going to be the right path, and who was going to meditate,
who was going to be very peaceful, and you misleading them. You are deluding a person.
A person wanted to be out of illusion, and now person is going on the wrong way.
So, a person is going wrong way, like, in drugs or alcohol, maybe you can get together and try to stop the person, but
when person is on the good path, never stop them. Encourage them. That is the way.
And, also, the other blockage is karma. Karma is already a big blockage, because they miss their time sometimes,
because of karma. Even they met enlightened master, even they met, even they met even God itself.
They still will miss the opportunity, because their karma. Sometimes karma is so strong.
Even the God is knocking the door, your door, you will not listen to the knocking.
This is symbolic I am talking about. But, even they, even they meet the person, a master, they still will find
some kind of excuses. They get really confused. Confusion is one of their main blockage.
Because, they, spiritual aspirant and spiritual practitioner who wants to do, and wants to grow spiritually,
they get confused easily. How? Because there are many option these days.
If they are on internet all the time, they have many options, many views, many gurus.
And, they listen too much to them. When they listen too much to them they cannot decide what to do.
And, that's why they get confused, and to be out of confusion is not easy. You need a real master to take you
out of confusion. And, that's what I suggest: be strong. Be confident enough, and, that, you can fight
with these blockages, and you can remove these blockages. And, it is in your hand,
if you are able to remove these, those blockages, and you work on those blockages... don't consider your parents
are your, only your friends, no. They can be your enemy if they stop you. They can be friends if they encourage you
on the good things. Mostly, parents, they encourage person, um, encourage their child to be good, but if
they stop on the good path, it means they become enemy. So, you have to be out of confusion.
Once you are out of confusion you will begin to grow spiritually.
You can be very advanced on spiritual path. And, I will suggest to you, that, create enough confidence, enough
enough strength to fight these blockages. Karma is also a main blockage you have to fight with, you have to
somehow finish your bad karma. And, the bad karma on the spiritual path is called antaraya.
Maybe you have stopped someone on the spiritual path in your previous life. And, now even you have opportunity
to meet a master, you have opportunity to meet, to have the good path, the spiritual path,
spiritual advisor with you, but you cannot follow it somehow. So, you need to work on a few things
to remove those all blockages, and you will grow spiritually. That's what I wanted to give you message
today, and hopefully you will follow these steps and you try to remove all these blockages. Jai Siddhatma.