Seeds of Patience by Radhanath Swami

 

In China there is a type of bamboo tree. When you plant that seed, nothing even comes out of the ground, there is no growth for the whole first year. The second year, no growth; the third year, no movement; the fourth year, nothing. Why waste water anymore on this lazy tree? But the people have faith, they keep watering the tree. And in the fifth year, within six weeks it grows to 90 feet.

We can understand life very much through nature. It’s not that we always get immediate results for what we do. We should have faith, and one of the symptoms of faith is patience. In his book Bhakti Rasamrita Sindhu, Srila Rupa Goswami, a renowned saint of the 16th century, describes that we need both enthusiasm and patience for success in Bhakti.  How to combine these two qualities is a great art; if you don't have enthusiasm nothing will ever happen, but if you don't have faith, you will give up when you do not see immediate results.

Real success is our attitude, an attitude of faith that if we are doing the right thing, we know we are doing something wonderful for God & for the world. And the results will come, but how they come is beyond our control. In the Epic Mahabharath we find the example of the Pandava brothers. They remained faithful to Krishna although they were banished to the forest for 12 years; they lost everything, but they persevered. When the proper time came, they fought the battle of Kurukshetra, and ultimately they were the kings. That's enthusiasm and patience. These stories are given to us in the scriptures to help us cultivate the proper consciousness within our lives. There is no greater self confidence than faith in the power, the glory and the grace of the supreme.

Who is Radhanath Swami

Radhanath Swami is a Vaishnava sanyassin (a monk in a Krishna-bhakti lineage) and teacher of the devotional path of Bhakti -yoga. He is author of 'The Journey Home', a memoir of his search for spiritual truth. His teachings draw from the sacred texts of India such as The Bhagavad-gita, Srimad Bhagavatam, and Ramayana, and aim to reveal the practical application of the sacred traditions, while focusing on the shared essence which unites apparently disparate religious or spiritual paths.

Born Richard Slavin, on December 7, 1950, in his teens he came to confront a deep sense of alienation from suburban Chicago life and the civil injustices of mid-century America. At the age of nineteen, while on a summer trip to Europe, his internal struggles culminated in a commitment to search for God wherever it might lead him. Meditating on the Isle of Crete, he felt a supernatural calling and the next morning set off alone to find spiritual India. The Journey Home documents his odyssey as a penniless hitch-hiker though Greece, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and finally India. There he lived as a wandering ascetic, first amongst the forest dwelling Himalayan yogis and later amongst a wide variety of gurus and spiritual practitioners throughout India and Nepal. Ultimately, he was led to the holy town of Vrindavan, where he found his path amongst the Bhakti-yogis.

In Vrindavan he found the teacher he was searching for in A.C.Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896-1977) the founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), and representative of Gaudiya Vaishnavism (the Krishna-bhakti tradition stemming from the 16th century mystic avatar Sri Chaitanya). In choosing Bhaktivedanta Swami, as his guru, Radhanath Swami felt compelled to shear his matted locks and reenter Western society with a mission to share the sacred wisdom he had received. This return exemplifies the form of devotional yoga which is at the heart of Radhanath Swami’s teachings, a spiritual practice expressed as tangible action meant to bring about personal fulfillment and benefit the world.

At the the age of 31 he took the monastic vows of a Vaishnava sanyassin and became known as Radhanath Swami.

Today Radhanath Swami travels regularly throughout India, Europe and North America, sharing the teachings of Bhakti-yoga. He resides much of the year at the Radha Gopinath Ashram in Chowpatty, Mumbai. For the past twenty-five years he has guided the community’s development and has directed a number of acclaimed social action projects including Midday Meals, which daily serves more than 260,000 plates of sanctified vegetarian food to the children of the slums of Mumbai. He has also worked to establish missionary hospitals and eye camps, eco-friendly farms, schools and ashrams, an orphanage, and a number of emergency relief programs throughout India.