One of our readers K.R. wrote:

“I was watching Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. A girl in it, Lyra, has a task to fulfill but the prophecy was that she would not succeed if she did it with knowledge of what she was doing it for. Is a person innocent (not ignorant) of the ways to tap Grace more likely to experience it, I wonder.

In an online magazine, I read of extremely experienced hikers who died atop a mountain in Russia. In the dark, they believed a snow boulder falling on them was the beginning of an avalanche. They did all the things an experienced person would do, evacuated their tent, fled out and that led to their deaths. The investigators said amateurs would have survived that because they would have stayed close to their tent not knowing how dangerous an avalanche can be. Is spontaneity a greater protection than over cautiousness especially when it comes to adhidaivik things?

In Lord of the Rings, the brave elven kings and wise wizards who knew what the end could be and how powerful Sauron was were not the ones who could bear the burden of carrying the one ring to Mt Doom. It was given to a Hobbit who had no clue of the scale of the risk or the power in the ring he was carrying. Does not a person ignorant of fear fare better than the one who has measured all the fears carefully?

I think aloud - having all the knowledge in the beginning isn't always useful or helpful or necessary to the journey, is it? One could do well leaning into the unknown and trusting the knowledge that comes as the moment is ripe, trusting that assistance is ever given to those who are sincere, patient and keep faith.”

Well, what the thoughtful reader says fully resonates with me. Yes, too much knowledge or premature knowledge has often proved deleterious. A Guajarati litterateur Dhiruben Patel, in one of our conversations, told me God gives us enough light to take one step at a time in the dark, He does not light up the whole path for us because actually we need light enough only for the next step. One step at a time the light comes, and one step at a time we walk. Yet, we wish to build the idea of security only if we seem to know the whole path.

Wisdom, wine, wealth, wellness and weather must be enjoyed little by little. The famous subhashita says:

शनैः पन्थाः शनैः कन्था शनैः पर्वतलङ्घनम्।
शनैर्विद्या शनैर्वित्तं पञ्चैतनि शनैः शनैः॥

śanaiḥ panthāḥ śanaiḥ kanthā śanaiḥ parvatalaṅghanam।
śanairvidyā śanairvittaṃ pañcaitani śanaiḥ śanaiḥ॥

The road gets trodden little by little. The cloth is woven little by little. The mountain is climbed little by little. Knowledge and money are also gained little by little. All these five things are attained little by little.

When it comes to spirituality, this maxim of going little by little, comes handy. Sri Sitaramdas Omkarnath puts it succinctly when he says Self-realisation of God-realisation is a jivan sangraam, a lifelong battle. It cannot be scaled in a day or in a leap. Just as we cannot finish eating food for whole life even though we have the resources, and we must eat daily, each day brings us the knowledge that we need and that’s all we must partake of. Perhaps it’s the same with strength, courage and competence. God sends us the day’s feed of these and that must help us for the day.

Let us keep going and never stop, but beware of pretending to walk a step ahead of time or ahead of the season because even the universe is moving one step at a time.

~Raj Supe (Kinkar Vishwashreyananda)
Editor, The Mother