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      You keep dreaming, though hoping, but hoping is part of the mind. Hoping is not a spiritual quality—faith is. Hoping has doubt ingrained in it. Therefore belief, when it matures, becomes faith. Belief has its own limits; it cannot lead you to the Goal. If the belief is wrong, at some point it will shatter. That will make you rethink and go forward. Every coin has two sides, every thought has two sides, and so has belief. Where it is genuine, it fulfills you. Sometimes your belief shatters because ego does not get what it wants. That is self-delusion, an ego trip. But genuine belief leads you to a certain juncture where you can pick up the thread further to faith and from faith to Realization, to Enlightenment.
      Therefore in between you can see that distraction, dissipation and doubt have no meaning. So if a belief shatters you, it does not matter. You will come to know at that point what is right and what is not. And that itself is a great experience. Let’s say you are traveling somewhere thinking that a particular spot is over this mountain. You climb and it’s tiring, it’s hard work. And when you reach the other side of the mountain the thing you believed in is not there. Now since you have traveled some distance on the path, though you didn’t find what you wanted, at the same time you have grown from that experience and you begin to search further. The question sometimes comes up: “I could have saved that time and energy if I knew this thing wasn’t there.” The reply is that you were to travel toward the goal anyway. You set your own yardstick, your own promises to fulfill. That was your mind’s conjecture and no one else’s responsibility. In Raja Yoga there is a clear-cut answer: do not set your own goals in between; just travel.
      Your own milestones may or may not flourish because those are your projections. God promises you the Promised Land. He does not set your minor goals. In Raja Yoga there is process called neti, neti—“not this, not this.” You are setting the goal but not goals in between. Whatever comes, just go on climbing and traveling until the goal is reached. There is an aphorism from the Vedas that was a favorite of Swami Vivekananda: Utishtha jagrata prapya varun nibodhata— “Arise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached.” Until you realize, do not stop. To rest is okay; to drink water is okay; have your machinery kept in trim. But beyond that a good seeker will not sleep. He will not change his faith. He will keep his focus on his goal and there cannot be more than one goal, whichever goal you choose.

       Do your duties but do not deceive yourself to be diverted from the goal in the name of duties or try to use the goal for your needs on the way. This we have termed spiritual materialism. What is the difference between materialism and spiritual materialism?
       Seeker: One uses worldly things to satisfy the ego. The other uses spiritual things to try and satisfy the ego.
       Swamiji: You are right. Are both materialism and spiritual materialism equal or is one more dangerous than the other?
       Seeker: Spiritual materialism is worse. Materialism exists as an ego play, but spirituality should point to higher things. If you divert that, everything is lost, not only the material but also the spiritual.
       Swamiji: Right. Material things are on their own dimension and you are already doing what exists on that plane. But if you use the higher values of spiritual things for material purposes you are losing both. So you understand that a spiritual materialist is a worse culprit than a materialist. The focus has to be on the goal for its own sake.
       Whatever goal you set, whatever path or belief you choose, the tendencies in your mind will project out. To be happy when we get things or unhappy when we don’t is a materialistic outlook. But when you apply that to a spiritual Master or Guru or God or Spirit, that is spiritual materialism and you are damaging your spiritual path. Such souls sooner or later come to a very frustrated situation. They get depressed. They become very negative, even rebellious, hysterical or betraying. In my own humble experience, whenever I have tried to understand or analyze the betrayer nature in anyone, I have always found that person to be a spiritual materialist. A simple materialist never betrays; he is simply ambitious. It was not a materialist who betrayed Jesus, it was a spiritual materialist: Judas. You can see how spiritual materialism is more damaging than simple materialism. There are stories and stories on this in the Indian epics, in the Koran, and we all know about Lucifer. Spiritual materialists lose both worlds. They cannot enjoy earth and they have been disqualified from heaven. They cannot enjoy materialism, and even if they enjoy it a little, it is like chewing gum. It tires the teeth and does not give anything. Materialists may seem to enjoy for the time being, but that is very limited and transitory.



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