by Swami Yatiswarananda

One day or the other, in the life of every man must come a time when he too feels the call of the spiritual ideal. When such a call comes, he cannot help but listen to it. Nothing in the world can then give him satisfaction. He can never find peace until he follows the dictates of the higher call.

This inner awareness and compelling urge to follow the higher ideal marks the beginning of spiritual life. The spiritual ideal then fascinates him and haunts him all through life. This change from following worldly ideals to following a spiritual ideal is called "conversion." Spiritual life begins with that. In the case of some people this conversion is sudden; in the case of some others, it is a gradual development.

The number of people who undergo such genuine conversion is rather small at any time in any country. Whether you like it or not, true spiritual life is only for a chosen few. There can never be any mass spirituality, however beautiful this ideal may seem to you. The Bhagvad-Gita says that out of thousands of people only a few take to spiritual life, and out of the latter, fewer still really attain the highest superconscious realization. But let us all think we are these chosen few and strive to make ourselves fit for the fulfillment of the highest spiritual ideal.

Spirituality is a rare blessing
In the field of religion also there is a kind of aristocracy. The great saints and sages, the illuminated souls in all religions, form a class by themselves. But unlike worldly aristocrats, these spiritual aristocrats are always willing to share their riches with others. They are only too glad to give to others what they themselves enjoy. But the pity is few people care for the great treasures of spiritual life. Most of the people would rather wallow in the pigsty of the world than enjoy the cozy warmth of the spiritual mansion. You can take a horse to the water, but you cannot make it drink if it does not want to. So you need not look around to see how many people are following the spiritual path. If you feel the call of the higher ideal, you should follow it and try to fulfill its conditions. If others don't pay and heed to that call, you cannot do much about them. A parting of ways is inevitable in spiritual life.

Sankaracharya says:

"A human birth, desire for emancipation, and contact with holy men -- these three are very rare and are attained only through the grace of the Lord."

But even these three advantages are not enough. We must be eager to profit by these and must be willing to sacrifice everything for spiritual life. There must be the readiness to undergo any hardship, pay the price to achieve the supreme goal of life.

We should look upon it as a great fortune that for some reason or other, our mind possesses an attraction for the higher and eternal things and should see that we steadily and gradually proceed along the higher path never flagging till we reach the goal. Our spiritual fervor is to be maintained, but we very often run the risk of becoming slack. Thus spiritual striving stops in most people after they have taken to the spiritual life for a certain time. Their minds are too restless and too outgoing to keep up this spiritual fervor and intensity for a very long time, and to go on steadily and doggedly with their spiritual practice and readings and studies. So we should be on our guard. Dogged tenacity is the one thing needed for spiritual life. All progress can only be had through great steadiness and tenacity, never allowing ourselves to flag or to become lukewarm. Wordsworth says in one of his famous poems, "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting."