Lighted lantern in your hand

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Lighted lantern in your hand

"A man wanted a smoke. He went to a neighbor’s house to light his charcoal. It was the dead of night and the household was asleep. After he had knocked a great deal, someone came down to open the door. At sight of the man he asked, 'Hello! What's the matter?'

The man replied: 'Can't you guess? You know how fond I am of smoking. I have come here to light my charcoal.'

The neighbor said: 'Ha! Ha! You are a fine man indeed! You took the trouble to come and do all this knocking at the door!

Why, you have a lighted lantern in your hand!' (All laugh.)

"What a man seeks is very near him. Still he wanders about from place to place.

Sri Ramakrishna
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Q: I have been a teacher for many years. I see in myself and other teachers that we don’t always practice the basic course points and it disturbs me to a point that I feel a bit of a fraud when I teach. What to do?

Guruji: It is good that you feel the pinch. That is the safety valve. If you are oblivious to your not following the teaching, then there is a problem. The moment you recognize that there are shortcomings in you then you are very safe.

Don’t think that you are a fraud. You are a traveller on the path and you are guiding the people who are coming behind you. This will only bring humility in you and you will know that knowledge is precious. No doubt you may not follow it 100% but you cannot deny that your life has changed and you are following it at least 80%. So even if you are not following the course points or the knowledge a 100%, you look into the 80% of the points that you are following. There are people who have not even understood or started their journey. For them you can be a real help.

One more thing, when you teach others, you also learn, so don’t say that I am a hypocrite. As you are teaching, you are also learning and you are refreshing the knowledge. Instead of sitting and blaming yourself and others, it is better you start teaching. Otherwise you will sit and blame yourself, 'I am weak, I am unable to follow the knowledge, I am bad', and then you go into guilt and self-blame. This is the worst thing that can happen to you on the spiritual path. That is why on this path, you always have a guru or a master. You leave your weakness to your master and go with the strength that you have and move as much as you can. So don’t be hard on yourself, and at the same time, recognize that you don’t follow all the knowledge but you have the intention to follow and that is good.

So just move on. Don’t get off the path and blame yourself. If you feel that way, just come and sit in an advance course, or a blessing course and it will wash it all off, because this life is a journey and you have to keep moving till you find perfection. And slowly and steadily you will definitely get it.

Just turn back and analyse. Suppose you had not followed any of the points in life, where would you have been? It will be utterly scary, that is why know this and walk ahead. Leave your shortcomings to me.

Om Namah Shivay