Podcast details
Ambitions and faithfulness
Ambition prevents success and destroys the fruit of spiritual practice. Without a Guru's grace and true faithfulness, efforts yield no result. Faithfulness is now lost, as minds ask "What do I get?" and thus miss its golden benefit. An unsteady, ambitious mind cannot achieve perfection.
A story illustrates this. A being sought immortality from Śiva but was refused. He then requested a power: whoever's head he touched would burn. Granted this, he immediately tried to use it on Śiva himself. Śiva fled. Viṣṇu, appearing as a dancer, tricked the being into a dance where he imitated her movements and placed his hand on his own head, burning himself. His own ambition destroyed him.
Therefore, proceed step by step. Be faithful to your practice, your friends, yourself, your master, and your disciples. Direct experience, like that of spiritual energies, is beyond intellect. It is like blind men describing an elephant—each touches a different part and claims a different truth. All are right from their limited experience, and none grasp the whole.
"Ambition will burn us and will not help us to be successful."
"Every individual has different experiences."
Filming location: Prague, Czech Republic
This text is transcribed and grammar corrected by AI. If in doubt what was actually said in the recording, use the transcript to double click the desired cue. This will position the recording in most cases just before the sentence is uttered.
The text contains hyperlinks in bold to three authoritative books on yoga, written by humans, to clarify the context of the lecture:
- Yoga in Daily Life - The System
Paramhans Swami Maheshwarananda. Ibera Verlag, Vienna, 2000. ISBN 978-3-85052-000-3 - The Hidden Power in Humans - Chakras and Kundalini
Paramhans Swami Maheshwarananda. Ibera Verlag, Vienna, 2004. ISBN 978-3-85052-197-0 - Lila Amrit - The Divine Life of Sri Mahaprabhuji
Paramhans Swami Madhavananda. Int. Sri Deep Madhavananda Ashram Fellowship, Vienna, 1998. ISBN 3-85052-104-4
