How to stay motivated to pursue your spiritual path is ever a returning challenge. The key is to embrace the reminders and then journey on.
Dallying in the Ditch Again
Perhaps today is not going well, and you feel indifferent about your work and your progress. You think, “What have I done for Spirit lately?” And then you feel depressed and harshly judge yourself, “No wonder I don’t feel Spirit. I don’t deserve Spirit, because I forget so often. How can I ever deserve Spirit?” You realize that days have gone by, and you have taken care of every detail of your life, but you have neglected your soul. You have veered off your spiritual path and are dallying in the ditch. Of course, you know what the problem is and you know how to solve it, so you turn back to your spiritual studies.
You pick a spiritual poem to uplift your thinking. What better poem than the one that answers your immediate question, “When Will He Come?” by the great spiritual poet Paramahansa Yogananda. This poem contains the exact message that you need right now: “Even if you are the sinner of sinners, / Still, if you never stop calling Him deeply / In the temple of unceasing love, / Then He will come.”
The poem uplifts you because it simply reminds you to get out of that ditch and back on the road to your goal. You have thought you could not continue, and you have become convinced that Spirit will never come to you, but the inspired spiritual poet’s metaphors dramatically tweak your thoughts back to your goal.
How Could You Have Forgotten?
In the first stanza you are reminded that Spirit’s love is great like “ever-leaping flames.” Such “brilliancy” you realize will cause every desire of your human heart to pale in comparison. And all you have to do keep your attention on your path. You wonder how you could have ever given in to doubt, and you have only read the first stanza.
The second stanza continues to remind you of your own role in finding Spirit, in getting this blessing to come to you: those little pale desires amount to a “freezing inner indifference” that you must burn “fearlessly, grieflessly, joyously” in the “fireplace of life.” Of course, you knew that, but you had temporarily forgotten.
Stanza three continues to remind you: When Spirit is certain of your attention, when He knows “you will never leave the guru,” when nothing else can claim your total devotion, “Then He will come.”
Just Keep On Hoping
But even though your mind takes in these ideas, you feel easily oppressed by life, moody, powerless, and you wonder if you can really change enough so that Spirit will come to you and stay. The great spiritual leader’s words are there for you: “No matter how you feel—helpless, forsaken, / Tortured by temptation, karma, or tests— / If you ever keep hoping He will come, / He will come.” That sounds simple enough—just to keep on hoping. You can do that.
But the mind is stubborn and will fight you, telling you it doesn’t matter how much you hope, you are weak and you don’t deserve Spirit. Paramahansa Yogananda insists that “if your soul, disregarding all this, / Shall ever keep chanting within, ‘He will come,’ / He will come.” Yes, a great solace is remembering the power of the soul. Greater than the body that changes daily and the mind that flits every which way is the soul that is ever united with Spirit already. All you have to do is get out of that ditch and continue on your path.
Even the Sinner of Sinners Can Win
Then in the last two stanzas the great leader instructs that wandering mind: “When He shall be sure nothing else can claim you, / Then He will come.” And “Even if you are the sinner of sinners, / Still, if you never stop calling Him deeply / In the temple of unceasing love, / Then He will come.”
You know you are not the “sinner of sinners,” but at times you do forget to keep “calling Him deeply.” But after diving into this inspired song of the soul written just for you by this great Spirit-illumined poet, you are prepared to enter again that “temple of unceasing love” where you will be ready to greet Him when He comes.
