Don't have preferences

Kishore

Spiritual progress means lot of changes in our own personality, character. It also involves lot of emotions and overcoming inhibitions. It is said that a person who wants to realize God and surrender to God should not have personal preferences. It is important to be open minded and not have a list of things I like and things I don't like. 

In the following experience I also realized God is watching me and carefully molding my character by making me through go through different experiences. 

I used to dislike eating cereal as breakfast. One day one of my colleagues asked me what I have for breakfast and I confidently told him that I prefer eating Indian food as breakfast instead of cereal which is a western preferred breakfast. Looked like God heard me saying that and he wanted to teach me a lesson. 

In next couple of weeks we went to buy Cereal for my daughter which she is used to and instead bought a different brand of cereal. My daughter didn't like that variety of cereal and over next few weeks I ended up eating the cereal as breakfast as we can't throw away a pack of cereal. After sometime remembered what I told my colleague and realized that since I stated I don't want to eat cereal, I was forced to eat cereal. This is a lesson I learned. It is easier to say I want to progress spiritually and I accept God's will. But such ego and preferences are hurdles in spiritual progress. Now I have learned to accept things as they come instead of having likes and dislikes. 

My prasad contains food that I wanted to avoid

Something similar happened a few months back. I wanted to stop eating dhal because I am getting some stomach problems and told my wife not to prepare dhal items any more. That weekend we went to Livermore temple. At the temple they distribute prasad around noon. On our way back we picked up 3 packets of prasad and returned home. After coming home we opened our prasad. I found out of the 3 packets, the one I picked up contained dhal and other two packets didn't contain the same item. It might be a coincidence but I realized once again that what is best for us is decided by God. By resisting an experience we create hurdles in our spiritual progress. A spiritual aspirant needs to be open minded and accept any experience that comes his way. 

Related to this is another of my preference which was removed by God. We used to visit Livermore temple at least once in a month and I used to always say that I prefer going to temple only in the morning. Again my insistence was washed away by God and the circumstances forced me later to go to temple only in the afternoon. Once again God indirectly told me not to have any preferences and since I have started praying to him, I should surrender and obey his will. He will tell me what to do and I listen to him without any ego and follow the hints he gives to me through various persons. 

Jai Sriram, Jai Hanuman

June 2002