Begin Early in Life

There are a good many people who think that they can leave religion to their old age after enjoying all the fruits of life. But their time may never come because, after dissipating greater part of their energy in physical enjoyment, there will not be much of it left for strenuous spiritual practice. Many people start spiritual life too late to get any great benefit form it. Many people realize too late that their life had been in vain. But they are better than old fool who still runs after physical enjoyment even in old age, vainly imagining that he is a romantic young man. In the West you meet so many of these miserable people.

One has to begin as early as possible with one's spiritual life. Unless we have sown the seed of spirituality in our soul early in life, there is no possibility of creating the spiritual attitude in later life. Sri Ramkrishna one day warned his beloved young disciple Narendra about associating himself with Girish, the famous actor-dramatist of Bengal:
 
Master: Do you visit Girish frequently?  No matter how much one washes a cup that contained a solution of garlic, still a trace  of  the smell will certainly linger. The youngsters who come here are pure souls untouched by 'woman' and 'gold'. Men who have associated a long time with 'woman' and 'gold' smell of the garlic, as it were. They are like a mango pecked by crows. Such a fruit cannot offered to the  Deity in the temple, and you would hesitate to eat it yourself. Again, take the case of a new pot and another in which curd has been made. One is afraid to keep milk in the second pot, for the milk very often turns sour. 

Girish later on heard about this talk and asked Sri Ramkrishna whether 'the smell of garlic' would go. The Master replied that smell would go if the cup was heated in a blazing fire. Once a person has become a slave of his instincts, he finds it too difficult to free himself from their clutches. Old age is too short to achieve this freedom from instincts. If your ideal is freedom from bondage and sorrow by the attainment of superconscious experience, you had better start now. 

And suppose one dies before attaining one's goal? Remember the passage in the Gita: 'Even a little of this discipline saves one from the great fear'(2-40) . Those who have seriously struggled in spiritual life, those who have surrendered their all to the Divine, need not have any fear. There are other planes of existences where they can continue their spiritual quest, if they have lived an intensely spiritual life while alive. Then one would follow the same course where one left off. Deaths brings about only a change of environment but the focus of our consciousness, viz. the Divine, is always with us. Wherever we are, the Infinite is always with us. When we get this idea we lose all fear of death. We should court neither life nor death. Let destiny run its course but let us fix our heart for ever on the Divine. Let s march on fearlessly, resolutely, towards the goal.
Until you fall asleep, until you die, always  busy yourself with Vedantic thoughts.

Swami Yatiswarananda A monk from Ramakrishna mona
Collected from a compiled book