The Importance of Earnestness on the Spiritual Journey
Whatever you do for the sake of truth, will take you to truth. Only be earnest and honest.
—Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, from I Am That, p.172
If you’re engaged in any sort of a spiritual journey, you may have started to glimpse the importance of really taking the process seriously by looking deeply into your own habits, behavior patterns, and hidden beliefs and fears. That’s what The Not So Big Life describes, and I know that some of you reading here have been intently practicing the processes suggested therein. The prospect of a more meaningful life provides the motivation initially, but over time, that initial enthusiasm may wane as you start to appreciate the challenges of what’s required. As you work away in the trenches of your own spiritual development, you may also have noticed how easy it is to play the part of a serious and dedicated student of life, without actually being wholehearted about it.
About the Workshop
The next Continuing the Not So Big Life Journey workshop will be focused on helping those who’ve been engaging their version of a Not So Big Life (which can include any form of spiritual pursuit), to see where they are truly approaching the process with earnestness, and where they are avoiding the parts that they deem unimportant, frustrating, or just plain boring.
Those things that we are avoiding are almost always the most important on the spiritual journey. They are the things that our mechanisms (our personalities) deem to be a waste of time, when in fact they are the doorway to seeing through the illusion of the self-image.
The workshop will also allow us collectively to recognize the benefits of earnestness—most importantly, the dissolving of many of the apparent obstacles that keep us from the meaningfulness and vitality that we somehow know is there, if we only knew how to find them. By willingly engaging the challenges that life places before us, whether presented to us by a teacher, or by life in general, ever more of our innate potential comes forth. It’s not something we “do,” but something we “are,” when the personality lets go of its arguments with and resistances to what is. So, the benefits of learning how to be truly earnest are immense.
In fact, earnestness is one of the most important subjects we could consider focusing upon during our time together, even though it doesn’t sound very sexy. Without it, nothing is really being looked at in any depth, so nothing can shift, although there can seem to be a lot of activity as we try to appear to be working diligently. Our hearts must be completely engaged in order for change to happen, and that’s the real objective of this summer workshop. We’re going to look at what keeps that complete engagement from happening—all the imaginings of our personalities that would rather take an easier way out.
Along these lines, we’ll take some of our time together to understand how we take the illusions of the world we live in—and the delusions of our personalities—to be real and true, when they are anything but. And we’ll look at how our senses can easily deceive us into believing very limited views of a much vaster potential for experiencing.
So, we will be looking, together, at the almost boundless possibilities available to us when we’ve seen through our avoidance behaviors, and when we simply apply ourselves to what is here in front of us to be done. This could be one of the most important weekends of your lifetime, if you really allow it to teach you. And as you might anticipate, there will be some earnestness required. You must really want to look, and really want to learn, in order to grasp what is being pointed to.
I Am That
Here are some more quotes from I Am That to help give you a taste of where we will be going together:
Desire what is worth desiring and desire it well. Just like you pick your way in a crowd, passing between people, so you find your way between events, without missing your general direction. It is easy, if you are earnest. (p.131)
Action is a proof of earnestness. Do what you are told diligently and faithfully and all obstacles will dissolve. (p.81)
Whatever name you give it: will, or steady purpose, or one-pointedness of the mind, you come back to earnestness, sincerity, honesty. When you are in dead earnest, you bend every incident, every second of your life to your purpose. (p.119)
A dim-sighted man will not see the parrot on the branch of a tree, however much you may prompt him to look. At best he will see your pointed finger. First purify your vision, learn to see instead of staring, and you will perceive the parrot. Also you must be eager to see. You need both clarity and earnestness for self-knowledge. You need maturity of heart and mind, which comes through earnest application in daily life of whatever little you have understood. (p.124)
No need of faith which is but expectation of results. Here the action only counts. Whatever you do for the sake of truth, will take you to truth. Only be earnest and honest. The shape it takes hardly matters. (p.172)
If the seeker is earnest, the light can be given. The light is for all and always there, but the seekers are few, and among those few, those who are ready are very rare. Ripeness of heart and mind is indispensable. (p.194)
Note: The reason for all the quotes from I Am That, for those not familiar with the book, is that the teacher who spoke them, Nisargadatta Maharaj, emphasized always the primary importance of earnestness in the inner journey. It was through earnestness that he himself realized the truth of who we are, and he spent the rest of his life imparting his understandings to those who arrived on his unassuming doorstep in Mumbai. I Am That documents those understandings and allows all readers to learn from his realization.
Workshop Details
The next Continuing the Not So Big Life Journey Workshop will take place in July of 2024 (date TBD), online via Zoom.
As with other workshops in the Continuing series, this workshop is open only to those who have previously attended an Introductory Not So Big Life Workshop.
