When people go sailing on the high seas to some distant land of legendary prosperity, they often conceive navigation more romantically than realistically. They see it as adventurous, when actually it is frequently laborious and intermittently dangerous. By underestimating the difficulty, they are caught unprepared and can become disheartened.

Still, suppose they have already gone a long distance and are close to their destination. If they let their discouragement stop them from pursuing the opportunity before them, they cheat themselves.

A similar dual dynamic applies for us when we embark on a spiritual journey. When we hear about the oceanic ecstasy available through devotional absorption in Krishna, we become excited and embark on the journey to him by practicing bhakti-yoga. In our excitement, we often underestimate the difficulty.

The spiritual journey involves a laborious, even dangerous, battle against our mind internally and the world externally – both of which mislead us away from Krishna towards illusion and degradation. We need to gird ourselves for a fierce inner war, lest we be caught napping and get spiritually wounded.

Still, we shouldn’t become discouraged. Counterbalancing and, in fact, outweighing the difficulty is the opportunity – we are so close to Krishna. He is existence’s ultimate treasure; the source of the attractiveness of everything attractive; and the embodiment and fulfillment of our heart’s deepest aspiration for beauty, love and joy. Stressing the opportunity beckoning us, the Bhagavad-gita (07.03) indicates that those who approach Krishna are one among millions. After wandering in material existence for many lifetimes, after having persevered through the mind’s and the world’s myriad distractions, we have come so close to Krishna.

By thus intelligently estimating both the difficulty and the opportunity, we can muster the determination and the inspiration to persevere till we attain destination Krishna.

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