Satsang A Garden of Spiritual Life By Sri Radhakrishna Swamiji

Satsang A Garden of Spiritual Life By Sri Radhakrishna Swamiji

Spiritual Blossoming
Sri Ramakrishna said," The greatest purpose of human life is to see God, to
realize God." God has to be brought into every fiber of our being - in our
body, in our senses, in our will, in our emotions, and in our knowledge.
When this happens, our life becomes like a flower garden in full bloom. Such
a flower garden cannot be kept concealed. People will stand by such a garden
and enjoy it, even if they have not worked in it. Whoever comes into contact
with a genuinely spiritual person imbibes the peace, the sweetness, the
love, the compassion, and the faith emanating from that individual. It is in
the gardens of full blossoming that we find the treasures to humanity.

But spiritual life requires care. A person cannot bring forth a vegetable or
flower garden from the soil overnight. At first it seems baffling. You clean
out the weeds one day and then, only three days later, the weeds come again.
Gardening requires patience and hard work. You plant a seed, but it may take
one or two years for that seed to grow into a shrub and become beautiful. So
it is in our spiritual life with whatever we plant. We plant faith, we plant
love, we plant detachment, we plant self-control, and we plant knowledge.
All of these seeds must be planted, and we must not be impatient. We must go
on watering and feeding and weeding the soil until, slowly, the barren plot
is transformed into a garden of beauty.
Spiritual interest comes to a man as a result of great, good karma. The
Bhagavad Gita says, "Manusyanam sahasresu kascid yatati siddhaye"; "Among
thousands and thousands of human beings, maybe one person becomes interested
in the search for God." This person is not satisfied with his normal life of
pursuing pleasures; intellectual achievement, honor, fame - none of these
things satisfy him. His life may be fully successful from the worldly point
of view, but he feels emptiness, a vacuum.

What is lacking is spiritual Truth. Or, as we read in the Taittiriya
Upanishad, "The great Paramatman, infinite Spirit, who is ever pure,
eternal, immortal, who is of the nature of infinite Bliss; that immortal
Spirit, after creating these jivas, entered into those individuals." In
other words, the spirit of God, that infinite divine Being, resides in the
heart of every man.

But in most men He is neglected. He is covered over with our distractions or
what we call the worldly life, the ignorant life, the life in Maya. Among
thousands of people, maybe one becomes restless for God. Even then, the
Bhagavad Gita says, "And among thousands of people who are struggling for
that spiritual enfoldment, maybe one becomes really successful". If it is
the highest fulfillment, one cannot have it too easily. One must carry on
the search with patience, with perseverance, with faith, with courage. Only
then does the garden slowly become living.

The important step then is the awakening of this spiritual interest. Let a
spiritual seeker compare his life to a plot of land; let him resolve to make
that land into a beautiful garden. It will be a garden of enjoyment, but not
in the worldly sense, it is a refined enjoyment to feed the emotions and
bring harmony to the mind and nerves.

In this way spiritual experience grows as a garden grows. One season we have
certain plants; next season we replace some with different kinds of annuals.
But the garden is all the time filled with shrubs and flowers. Our journey
has come to an end. God is the totality of things; God is the totality of
all experiences. What more do I want? There is nothing for which to ask.
There is no more fear. Where shall I go?

All these questions are relevant only in the life of ignorance. But when the
Light of God has come, when that experience of God has come, these questions
cease because we find our true Self, our eternal companion. We become
eternally linked with that truth. This truth will not deprive us of our
normal activities and ideas; it transforms them, giving them new colour, new
fragrance. Such is the glory of spiritual life. If we compare it to our
known experiences, indeed a spiritual life is like a beautiful garden, a
source of joy and peace to us and to ail those whose lives we touch.

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