Good morning friends
I was talking to a friend a few days ago, and she said to me, “I have not travelled by train in a long time. I think I have lost my stamina.“ We often use this word, don’t we? And most of the times we mean a physical stamina….. stamina to do some physical work or exercise. But when I looked up the definition of stamina, the dictionary says that stamina is the ability to do something that involves a lot of physical or mental effort for a long time. So stamina does not mean just physical efforts, but also mental efforts. We all know that we can improve our physical stamina gradually over a period of days if we continue to do the same kind of activity and slowly increase the duration or the intensity of the activity. For example, climbing stairs— if we are used to lifts and escalators, we may get breathless on climbing just one floor. But if we practise climbing one floor every day and gradually increase the number of stairs over a period of a month or two, we can easily climb 3 to 4 floors at one go. The same is true with any physical work. I am sure most of us experienced this during lock down when our household helps could not come for work. Though initially we found it a lot of hard work, over a period of 8 to 10 days, we could easily manage all the physical work and cooking, and still get some free time on hand, and more importantly, not get too tired in the process.
Just as we can improve our physical stamina, we can work on our mental stamina also. Just to take the simple example of children going to school….. In the early years of school, children are not expected to put in a lot of mental effort, but gradually, as they go to higher standards, the duration and intensity of mental efforts increase and most of them can easily manage this because it is a slow gradual process, at least in the initial few years. Even as adults we can improve our mental stamina, by gradually increasing the duration of the mental efforts and of course by exerting our will power.
Just as I was thinking about the physical and mental stamina, I heard a very interesting talk by BK Shivani Didi. She introduced the concept of “spiritual stamina “ ! Though I heard this word for the first time, I could very easily relate to this term, especially because I have experienced the truth of this spiritual stamina. But to go back to Shivani didi’s talk…..she said that many people find it very difficult to put into practise simple spiritual activities like meditation, letting go of anger, forgiveness, being kind and compassionate et cetera. This is because they are not used to practising these things and that’s why they not sure about their ability to do so. They also have doubts about their success. She then advised her audience that just as you can increase the physical stamina, you can improve upon your spiritual stamina too by persistently behaving in the right manner in small steps. Being sincere and regular in any spiritual practice can give us excellent results. For example, initially you may find it very hard to let go of your anger, but as you practise a spiritual practice like meditation or listening to spiritual discourses on a daily basis, the intensity of your anger, the way that you express your anger, the time that you take to let go of your anger, all these things can improve gradually. And my personal experience is that when you master some of these practices, the Joy that you derive out of your success is much more than the Joy of improving physical or mental stamina !
Just as I was writing this, I got very angry with someone and frustrated that I couldn’t express my anger to that person. And then it dawned upon me that I need to work a lot on building up my spiritual stamina !
What about you ? Are you ready to increase your spiritual stamina ?
Love,
Anjali Bhatawdekar
