Profit and Loss in Spiritual Life

Hare Krsna everyone. Today is my birthday, or in other words I have been dying for more than 30yrs - not to say my age. what have I got on stock from this year, I can say I had more devotional life or material life. Srila Prabhupada used to say that spiritual life is profit and material life is loss. So it's important for everyone to think about it and analyse the year that is passing by. The last three days I was sick and chanting has been phisically hard, however it's amazing the realisations you get when you make efforts to please the Lord. Another quote from Srila Prabhupada that I got from my gurudevs lecture is :

Srila Prabhupada says here, a devotee's old age or disease in the present life is but an impetus to the guaranteed eternal life.

I could see the Lord's reciprocation and I made sincere efforts for my japa these days.
Tests are to help us make advancement and leads to the next step in devotional life. We are all here to try to detach from materialistic thinking which contaminates our minds and are impediments to chant nicely...besides that, we hanker for service, pure love of God and to get into a position which we can see the Lord face to face.
Everything is possible when we follow the spiritual master's footsteps, when we pray for mercy and when we have strong faith in the Holy Names of the Lord.
I have faith that Krsna is in his Holy Names and that by the mercy of Lord Gauranga, we are able to chant the maha mantra. It's a very nice opportunity that we have got in contact with a pure devotee of Krsna, Srila Prabhupada, who gave us the mercy of getting in touch with the process of bhakti yoga, the only process which can take us back to Godhead.
Being in association with vaisnavas give us the reason to keep on our spiritual path, by having this rare association we can understand why we are here and how we can serve the Lord to our best abilities.
I am here to share mercy from the Lord, to tell you how precious it is to have devotees' association and how rare it is to be protected by Krsna.
I hope we all have a nice week of chanting and are able to share nice realisations.

Haribol

Aruna dd