Spirituality Means Willingness to Change By Sri Swami Atmaswarupananda

It is not uncommon that when a speaker is speaking toan audience that he or she will get insights from whatthey said and perhaps be affected even more than theiraudience. This will normally happen if a speaker hasthought deeply upon a subject, if it’s a subject thatthey are keenly interested in. A theme like"Spirituality Means Change" is meant to be such achallenge to the speakers—so that as they prepare thetalk, or give it, they themselves realize theimplications of what they are saying and it goes invery, very deep. When this happens it cannot help butcommunicate itself to the audience. Actually, most of us are not totally satisfied withour lives. We want change. So when we hear thatspirituality means change, we can see many things inour lives that we would like to have changed.Especially we would like to have more Be good, Do goodin our lives. And, also, we would like to expand ourconsciousness beyond its present narrow boundaries—toenter into greater understanding. If that is so, why is it that we haven’t seen greaterchange in ourselves over the years? Why do most of ussometimes even feel that there has been no change, noimprovement? Perhaps the discovery we will make thisis that while there definitely is one part ofourselves that wants to change, there is another partof ourselves that simply does not want to change. Eachone will have to ponder this question for oneself,because no one else can know our interior exactly. Butwhat we may discover by the end of the week is thatthere is a surprising balance between wanting tochange and not wanting to change. Therefore, one way of looking at the themeSpirituality Means Change would be to see that in thefinal analysis spirituality means the willingness tochange. We have all tried to change things and beenunable to do so; we all have things we want to change;we’re in a stalemate. What is the solution? Beingwilling to change. That seems like a very reasonable suggestion. However,if we’re willing to change, then perhaps that impliesthat we will lose control over our lives. But, whatdid Jesus mean when He said, "Follow Me." He implied,"I know best. I know the way. Trust Me. Let go of yourcontrol of your life and put it in my hands." What didLord Krishna mean when He said, "No one crossessamsara without taking refuge in Me alone." What didHe mean when He told us to abandon all dharmas, allour ideas of right and wrong, and take refuge in Himalone. "I will save you from all sins. Don’t worry,"Lord Krishna said. He meant that our idea, our keepingcontrol of our life is what is killing us spiritually.The solution is to trust Him, take refuge in Himalone. And so, as we explore the theme Spirituality MeansChange, perhaps in the final analysis we will have tolook at the subject in terms of Spirituality MeansWillingness to Change.