We spend a lifetime trying to find God. But it is God Himself who calls on us, when He sees that we desire nothing but Him, says NAYASWAMI DEVI
There is a beautiful story about a devotee (let’s call him “Ramdas”) whose heart was pure, guileless, and filled with devotion for God. Every morning at the end of his meditation, he would pray, “Lord, whenever You call me to forsake this world, at that moment I will come.”
Though God never called, Ramdas still offered this heartfelt prayer daily. Time passed, and he and his wife became filled with great joy, awaiting the birth of their first child. But such is the nature of maya’s alternating waves of joy and sorrow that his happiness turned to grief when his wife died in childbirth.
As he took the helpless baby in his arms, Ramdas was filled with parental love and the desire to protect this tiny, motherless child. Just at that moment, God broke His silence and called to him: “Ramdas, now is the time for you to leave all and come to Me.”
With eyes filled with tears, Ramdas replied, “Lord, You know that You are my heart’s first love, and I will come, but I also have a human heart. Please reassure me that this child will be cared for.”
In response, God said to him, “Place the infant in a basket, and leave it along the road outside the village. Then wait behind a tree, and see what happens.”
Ramdas did as God instructed him, and after a while he heard the sound of many horses approaching. It was the queen of the realm and her entourage en route to a nearby city. At the sound of the horses, the infant awoke from his slumber and began to cry.
Hearing the wailing, the queen stopped the entourage and instructed one of her attendants to bring the baby to her. Ramdas watched in amazement as the queen took his child in her arms, and said, “I will raise this poor, abandoned baby as my own.”
His heart reassured, Ramdas quietly walked away into the forest to dedicate the rest of his life to God alone.
This story has always touched me for two reasons. First, it’s a beautiful demonstration of God’s understanding and acceptance of our human needs. Second, Ramdas’s freedom to come when God called gives us all reason to ask ourselves, “What is holding me back?”
A friend of ours recently shared a concept that had greatly helped her. She’d become aware of her many “unacknowledged resistances”: all the little defenses, self-justifications, and attachments that we allow to remain in our heart. To find the freedom to come to God when He calls, we need to acknowledge and weed out all the “resistances” of ego.
The great sage Paramhansa Yogananda explains when one can find God. He says: “When will you find God? When all your desires for other things are finished. When you realize that the only thing worth having is Him. When every thought, every feeling is drenched with the love of God.”
Nayaswami Devi is spiritual director of Ananda Sangha Worldwide, together with Nayaswami Jyotish. Ananda Sangha was founded in 1968 by a direct disciple of Paramhansa Yoganandaji, Swami Kriyananda.