People in Spiritual Life Fall

Question 1: I know many people who, despite many years of associating with enlightened masters, and even after attending many spiritual discourses, have scant regard for the Guru, mahatmas and spiritual life. What blocks their understanding?

Answer 1: "Even when the nature of God is explained, those who have not been purged of their faults and impurities would either disbelieve or misbelieve it, as was the case with Indra and Virochana. Therefore, knowledge as inculcated arises only in him who has purified himself by austerity, performed either in this or in a previous birth." (pg. xiii, The Bhagavad Gita by Swami Sivananda)

Question 2: I know a few people, who claim that they read (or studied?) the scriptures and spiritual books. But they not changed a wee bit; worst of all, they have got bad to worse?

 

Answer 2: "Just as coloured dye stands out more clearly only when the original material is pure white, so also the instructions of a sage penetrate and settle down only in the hearts of aspirants whose minds are calm, who have no desire for enjoyments and whose impurities have been destroyed." (pg. xiii, The Bhagavad Gita by Swami Sivananda) 

Question 3: What are the qualifications that one should possess before one could read, understand and absorb the significance of scriptures like the Gita and Srimad Bhagavatam, for instance?

 

Answer 3: "An aspirant is expected to possess the qualifications of keen discrimination, dispassion, control of the mind and senses, and AVERSION to worldly attractions, before he can practise the threefold Sadhana of hearing the scriptures, reflecting upon them, and meditating upon their significance. (pg. xiii, The Bhagavad Gita by Swami Sivananda)

 

Question 4: It has become fashionable these days to hear people saying that they are hoping to get self-realisation or God-realisation. What are the prerequisites for that?

 

Answer 4: "Discipline and purification of the mind and the senses are the prerequisites for aspirants on the path of God-realisation." (pg. xiii, The Bhagavad Gita by Swami Sivananda)