Complacent War

The feeling of beginning something new. The freshness the atmosphere has while starting the journey. Whatever it may be there's something exciting about beginning something, everything is new. On the spiritual journey, no matter what religion you might be a part of, the beginnings are always great. You receive a lot of mercy and grace and you learn so many new things about yourself and of philosophy.

But, as we tread on we start noticing stones and pebbles. Difficulties arise, we seek protection and we overcome fears. The battle dies down and then there's a secret war. A war that you don't even know you're a part of. THe war of complacency. What you've learned becomes basic knowledge and we carry out our rituals lazily just to get them over with. We become distracted by things we once had no attraction for because we were so enthusiastic in our spiritual practices.

Today I read some quotes by Thomas Merton that started me thinking about what I wrote above. Here they are:

"One cannot begin to face the real difficulties of the life of prayer and meditation unless one is first perfectly content to be a beginner and really experience himself as one who knows little or nothing, and has a desperate need to learn the bare rudiments. Those who think they "know" from the beginning will never, in fact, come to know anything."

"We do not want to be beginners. But let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be anything else but beginners, all our life!"

And there's a passage in Nectar of Devotion written by Srila Prabhupada that is very instructive in being enthusiastic:

"In other words, one should learn how to cry for the Lord. One should learn this small technique, and he should be very eager and actually cry to become engaged in some particular type of service. This is called laulyam, and such tears are the price for the highest perfection. If one develops this laulyam, or excessive eagerness for meeting and serving the Lord in a particular way, that is the price to enter into the kingdom of God. Otherwise, there is no material calculation for the value of the ticket by which one can enter the kingdom of God. The only price for such entrance is this laulyam lālasāmayī, or desire and great eagerness."

So please help me fight.