When urged to practice spiritual life, some people stay lethargic, saying, “I am waiting to get an inner call.”

However, do we adopt such an approach of waiting in other important walks of life?

Consider students pursuing a four-year degree. Do they just keep waiting for the day of graduation? No, they study and prepare, pushing themselves towards attaining the educational level needed for graduating.

Or consider a pregnant woman nearing delivery. Does she just keep waiting for her baby’s birth? No, she keeps pushing too. Without her pushing, delivery can become inordinately delayed, distressing, even dangerous.

In our spiritual life, we too need the same combination of waiting and pushing. Why do we need to wait? Because we can’t grow spiritually faster than what is ordained by providence. Just as a baby can’t become an adult in six months, we can’t rise from our present level of conditioning to pure devotion overnight. We need to patiently await divine grace.

Then, why do we need to push? Because devotional patience is not passive waiting; it is active working. We need to take small steps towards Krishna, to do what we can in his service. By our actions, we need to show him that we desire to come closer to him, to love him and to live absorbed in him. Only when we thus express our free will spiritually does he intervene and redirect our life’s trajectory. Otherwise, respecting our free will, he lets us continue to stay on in material consciousness, forgetful of him.

Stressing the reciprocity between human endeavor and divine grace, the Bhagavad-gita (08.07) assures that we can attain Krishna when we think of him internally and do our duty externally.

Thus, devotional growth is a dynamic blend of waiting and working, of dependence on Krishna and diligence for Krishna.

Think it over:

  • In daily life, how do we both wait and push?
  • In spiritual life, why do we need to wait?
  • In spiritual life, why do we need to push?

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