07.03 – Our spirituality is a specialty, not an abnormality

“You don’t have to be so serious about your spiritual life. You don’t want to become an abnormal person, do you?” Those of us committed to substantial devotional practices may sometimes receive this kind of unsolicited advice from both materialists and nominal spiritualists. Repeated labeling of this sort may make us doubt: “Am I really being abnormal?”

Gita wisdom clarifies our thinking by orienting it with reality. The Bhagavad-gita (07.03) reminds us that those devoted to Krishna are special not just among materialists, but even among spiritualists.

To understand this verse, we can visualize our life as a train journey. The Gita is emphatically clear that life’s destination is eternity: return to the abode of Krishna for an eternal life of ecstatic love.

Materialists have boarded a train going in the opposite direction: away from Krishna and deep into the cycle of birth and death. Nominal spiritualists are those who do some kind of spiritual practices out of deference to tradition or as a recreational change from material pursuits or as an uncommitted “try it out” exploration. They may be on a train towards Krishna, but their train is moving at a minimal or even near-zero speed and so may take multiple, even innumerable, lifetimes to reach station eternity.

The speed of the train towards Krishna is determined by the quantity and quality of the seeker’s spiritual commitments. By divine grace, we have been granted entry into a superfast train that will take us to Krishna in just one lifetime. When we study Krishna’s message and associate with his devotees, we will recognize entry in this train to be a rare privilege.

Thus, our spirituality is a specialty, not an abnormality. Why should we abandon the superfast train for the sake of a slow train?