In this day and age there are so many spiritual practices to choose from. It’s good to invest some time in finding a practice that our heart and mind can agree on and then sticking with it. The tendency is to keep jumping from one thing to another instead of staying with one practice. We do something for a few months, then something else comes that looks more exciting, so we go do that. That is called digging potholes.
If you want to drink water, you’ll have to dig one well deep. There may be a time while you are digging that you come upon a large rock and your drill does not seem to go anywhere – it stays spinning on the rock. You have a choice – either go and start digging another well or keep working on the well you started. Don’t lose your faith. Keep trying. Keep applying pressure. Keep making an effort, even a little, every day and someday that rock will shatter, the drill will go down deeper, and eventually, you will drink the water.
When you start a spiritual practice, in the beginning there is a lot of new energy and it feels good. But there comes a time that you hit a plateau and it feels like you are not getting anywhere – you are not getting the same high. We lose our patience and the tendency is to move on to something else. This is when determination is needed. In order to create that anchor in our life that a spiritual practice brings, we need patience, persistence and forbearance.
The practice that you have is very important. Keep it going, keep it alive, whatever it takes. Keep digging deeper and deeper.