Someone sent in a question saying, “Oh, you know, like that pandit ji that Jagadguru Shankaracharya sent away, he came to him saying,
“Please, I want to be your disciple!”
And he sent him away, saying,
“Your heart is not pure. You grumbled at this lady who was sweeping, and she swept some dirt on you! See that anger that came out? That shows your heart is not pure. So you’re not qualified for gyan marg (the path of spiritual knowledge). Go and do bhakti (devotion) and come back.”
So this went on a few times.
And in a short few years, with Shankaracharya Ji’s grace, by doing devotion how he told him to, going and chanting Radhe name and doing parikrama (religious practice of circumambulation) of Govardhan Hill (the sacred hill in Vrindavan associated with Shree Krishna) he purified his heart. So the question (that was sent) is,
“Can we also, even though we’re so fallen, we have such an ambar (mountain-like burden) of sins on our heads, can we also purify our hearts in such a short time?”
Well, that depends on us. How much sharan varan tushti (means when one’s words show surrender to God, but the mind is not really surrendered) are we doing? If we were to follow all the instructions correctly for how to do devotion, then of course, in a very short time we could purify our hearts. Not that the time really matters. We don’t need to be impatient about it. I mean, it’s good to be motivated to do devotion, but from eternity till now we’ve survived. Even if it takes a few lifetimes to purify our heart, what’s the big deal? That’s nothing in the grand scheme of things. Nonetheless, you have to do it in some life, right? You can’t keep saying,
“Oh, I’ll do it. It’ll take me a few lifetimes. It’ll take me a few lifetimes.”
One of those lifetimes is going to be the lifetime. So why not this lifetime? But for that, we have to follow all of the instructions.
