OM! I bow to the power of keeping going 

[What follows is an excerpt from what I’m considering my “second book,” a commentary on my “1008,” a devotional and unitary vision of the Infinite One. (“First book” is written and in the editing stage.) You can read much more about the 1008 on this web page.] 

This blog is a commentary on the title phrase. One person attending a recent recitation wanted to know more about my use of the phrase “keeping going” so this is my answer. Another entry from that book is here.

People who have studied with me know this “Ti-ism”—Keep going. This has been one of my most often repeated phrases/teachings for decades and many students have possibly heard it and reiterated it themselves many times. I consider my life as an example of what happens when a person commits to a Path and then keeps going. If you have progressed in any way, in anything, it is the result of the power of keeping going.

Over decades of teaching, I have, of course, seen many begin a Path and then not keep going. Not long ago I ran across a former student. In our short moment with each other, he lamented out loud that he remembered studying with me, how helpful it had been and that he wished he’d continued, having dropped off the practices many years ago. When we keep going with things that we find helpful, it naturally leads to a different place than not keeping going does.

For years, I have loved the practice of kirtan—repetitive, devotional singing from the Indian tradition. In the past few years, I have contemplated what are the various Hindu deities that we invoke in that practice. Ganesha is seen as the remover of obstacles and was one of the first I took a deeper look at. Each visual form a Hindu deity has is meant to convey one or more spiritual truths. 

I know the symbolism of Ganesha’s elephant-headed, humanoid form. Here are a few examples: His elephant ears teach the importance of listening. An elephant’s trunk can pick up a needle or a tree, meaning that we need to be able to grasp both the big and obvious as well as the very small and subtle aspects of our Path. Elephants are well known for their great memories and loyalty. His big belly conveys that he holds the entire Universe within him. These are just a few examples, among others that come to mind.

But what is it that gets us past obstacles when they arise on our Path—any path? On one level, very simply, it’s “just” keeping going—being unwilling to stop the process and instead continuing to work toward the goal we have set for ourselves. 

Resting is, of course, appropriate and necessary at times, usually daily, but resting is different from stopping. Resting rejuvenates and allows us to keep going, but once we are on a Path, stopping for too long will torture and slowly kill the soul. Will things sometimes arise in Life to stop us? Sure… but for how long? It depends on how much of this power of keeping going is present in us at the time. 

Personal commitment is one level of the power of keeping going and is an aspect of it over which we can have some control. If we really want something, nothing will stop us; we simply won’t allow it. But if we aren’t committed, it’s better that we honestly acknowledge that fact to ourselves, rather than pretending otherwise. If we think we are committed but act as if we aren’t, then we are simply lying to ourselves which is, itself, contrary to the spiritual process. Our denial and avoidance of that fact will prevent us from potentially making a different choice.

We all have experienced times when some obstacle has appeared in our Path—usually daily!—and then we are faced with choices. Sometimes we readjust—we change our approach or look at the situation differently, learn what we need to learn or make whatever adjustment is necessary—and we keep going. Sometimes the obstacle stops us, and we give up. That is obviously an appropriate response in some situations. 

Often it will seem that we have a choice in the matter, but if we look closely, the force, the energy, and the motivation to continue are either there or not, independent of “me.” We may want to claim it as “ours” and say that we are making it happen, but do “I” really make that decision? Could I really have made a different choice? Many times—maybe every time—no. It’s like we are “driven” to act in that particular way. On some level, this power of action is not under our control, and the Flow is directing us, whether we are aware of it or not.

As a personal example, I couldn’t have not kept going on my chosen Path. For many years, I have described my practices as “just what I do”—there is no real discipline and rarely any feeling of “choice.” Just as I floss my teeth every night before brushing my teeth since I was nineteen years old, I get on my yoga mat and meditation seat for hours each day without a second thought. How much choice any of us really have in our life is always a question that we can never know the answer to, but I think it’s very small, if it even exists. 

Somehow the power to keep going is there—when it is—and though the power of choice is always theoretically available, the power to keep going is also in some ways beyond our control, as our history and inborn patterns frequently dictate otherwise. We could say that the power to keep going arises as a result of Grace, some blessing force beyond our obvious control. Hence, in the tradition, that power is deified.

And once it is there, it has its own power—the power to both clear away obstacles and to deliver the natural results that come from that keeping going. This power, this force, can be seen as existing “outside” of our little selves. All we can really do is act, but for success to come, so many more factors than we have control over must fall into place. So I bow to That Power which exists beyond what I think of as “mine.”

From a Universal perspective, the Power of Keeping Going—capitalized here to indicate that it is truly a Divine Force—is all-powerful. It never is not here. It is an inherent power of Life. We have all seen that Life, in its many forms, is tenacious and can persist even when we thought it couldn’t. There are “positive” and “negative” sides to that, but that is not the focus here. 

Though death may be imagined as something that stops the Keeping Going, in this tradition and even just from common sense, that is impossible. Death is so obviously a part of Life, not something antithetical to Life. Death is Life. Life is Death. They are aspects of each other. 

Amma, my spiritual teacher and inspiration, repeatedly says that death is like putting a pause at the end of a sentence; the speaking continues. Death is just an ending of a part of our being—the physical body. Some part of us keeps going, through no choice of our own, drawn forward by the Power of Life, the Power of Keeping Going. So ultimately, everyone and everything in Creation keeps going. Everything that is temporary ends, sure, but there is a Bigger Picture in which the Essence of each “thing” never ends. 

So even if we sometimes seem to stop on the spiritual Path—the Path of Awakening and of “personal” Evolution—it’s not true. Life wants to know Itself and keeps going. In that moment of apparent “stopping,” Keeping Going just looks different than what we thought It would look like. And then we find ourselves saying, “Duh? Of course things won’t always show up as I expected!” Fortunately, due to the loving Grace of the One, ultimately things will flow even better than we ever could have expected. So I surrender again and again to this profound Power of the One.