09.13.06
Pause for thought 13 Sep (With Terry Wogan)
Recently I took delivery of a new mobile phone. Quite a complex affair, boasting a range of amazing new features. Of course, being a typical male, with an inbuilt resistance to being told how to do anything, I tossed aside the instruction manual and set about figuring it all out for myself. Soon I had managed to connect to the internet, send off a couple of video mails, and record a short film of the clutter on my desk – but had not succeeded in setting up my speed dials, the first thing I had attempted. Needless to say I ended up consulting the manual anyway.
Sadly it is not only with phones that I have this problem. This will probably shock you Terry, but even priests like me are not always paragons of perfect virtue. Although I daily study my scriptures I have to admit that I don’t always do what they say.
However, the inevitable result is the same as with my new phone. I end up frustrated. But one thing I have managed to learn over the years is that such frustration is actually a good thing, for me it is the Lord’s mercy, letting me realise that I am getting it wrong, ignoring his advice.
In truth we have very little control over this world. We try our best, but at the end of the day there is a power beyond us all in control. When we recognise and surrender to that power, things are so much easier. Martin Luther King used to say that when he faced a particularly difficult time he would spend an extra hour on his knees in prayer, rather than working longer and harder trying to solve the problems himself.
And God has already given us so much help. Scriptures are like divine instruction manuals. They are not meant to curb our creative freedom, but to show us how to get what we want, which means happiness. That is what the Lord wants for us also. By guiding us away from excessive indulgence and more toward spiritual life he is not some kind of killjoy, aiming to make our lives miserable. In fact by following him we find our misery subsiding and eventually disappearing. The result, described in Vedic terms, is eternity, knowledge and bliss – our real spiritual existence.
Surely if we pursue pleasure at any cost, oblivious to God’s guidance, we can never achieve enduring happiness. Let’s avoid a situation described by Martin Luther King when he said, “The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.”
So Terry, in future I think I will stick to carefully following the manual, as far as I can. And as for mobile phones – maybe I’ll trade mine in for a carrier pigeon.
