How can we inflame our aspiration to traverse the path to God-realization?

  

   One of the important devotional virtues, which will stand you in good stead as you move ahead towards God, is the intensity of your aspiration. A strong aspiration will help you cut through the greatest hindrance as a knife cuts through butter. However, if your aspiration is weak, then every little obstacle will appear like a mountain to you. So, you must endeavor not to remain lukewarm, but to keep the desire for spiritual attainment burning brightly.

  How can you inflame your aspiration for God? This requires chintan, or contemplation. Repeatedly contemplate upon the Divine knowledge of the scriptures, and the knowledge you have heard from the lotus mouth of your Guru and the Saints. Usually seekers feel great inspiration when they attend the lecture series, but once it is over, they find their enthusiasm waning. The reason for this is that while hearing lectures, the knowledge remains fresh in their intellect. But then, due to lack of revision, the knowledge starts evaporating, causing a dip in their enthusiasm. Chintan, or contemplation about what you have heard and read, is the antidote for this. Such chintan will strengthen your decision that your eternal relationship is with God alone. And a strong decision will be your asset to further steps.

  The Vedas describe a powerful formula for progressing quickly on the path:

स यथा कामो भवति तत् क्रतुर्भवति यत् क्रतुर्भवति 

तत् कर्म कुरुते यत् कर्म कुरुते तदभिसंपद्यते ||

( बृहदारण्यक उपनिषद् 4.4.5)

  "The stronger your decision that attaining God is the goal of your life, the more intense will be your desire to meet Him. And the more intense your desire, the deeper will be your resolve to do the things that take you closer to Him. The deeper your resolve, the harder you will try. The harder you try, the more Grace you will attract, and the closer you will come to Him."

  So, appreciate the importance of a strong aspiration on the spiritual path and endeavor to ignite it within yourself. Do your sadhana on a daily basis. Read Jagadguru Shree Kripaluji Maharaj's "Prem Ras Siddhant" regularly in which he has summarized the knowledge of all the Vedic scriptures, watch the lecture DVD's you have procured, and keep revising the knowledge with your intellect. 

   

Whenever I am in satsang, I feel de-stressed but once I am out of satsang, the stress level increases. My question is how to get relieved of stress permanently?

We experience stress because we want certain outcomes, situations and results. However, the soul is not independent, and it is not within its ability to fulfill all of the desires. By nature, the soul is a servant of God. Now, what is the duty of the servant? To fulfill the wishes of the master. If we surrender to God and think whatever He does is for our welfare, this attitude of surrender will help us get rid of stress. A surrendered soul says:

राज़ी हैं उसी मैं जिसमें तेरी रज़ा है। 

यूँ भी वाह वाह है त्यों भी वाह वाह है ।।

   "I am happy in Your happiness. Whatever situation You put me in, I will blissfully accept it." Thus, stress is a symptom of lack of our submission to the Will of God. When we experience stress, the best medicine to cure it is to increase our level of surrender. 

   Now, what is the problem in increasing the level of surrender? Worldly attachments! We keep on pondering, "This should happen this way; that should happen that way." That is the main hurdle to complete surrender. For achieving that goal, we need to increase our detachment from the world.

    

   Before God-realization, there will always be some amount of tension within everyone, because the extent of surrender will not be one-hundred percent. However, by giving us tension, God signals to us that something is wrong and we need to correct it by surrendering further to Him. This is just as when we put our hand in the fire, we feel pain. What would happen if we did not feel the pain? Our hand would burn without our knowing it. The feeling of pain is, in fact a form of Grace. It is a signal that something is wrong, and that must take the hand out. Similarly, stress is a signal that we need to increase our surrender and devotion to God.

     A spiritual doctor will prescribe you the medicine of submitting to God for getting rid of stress, whereas a material doctor will give you all kinds of medicinal drugs. However, such drugs will not help eradicate the root cause of  stress. By increasing the level of surrender, the source of stress will itself be eradicated. Shree Krishna states in the famous verse:

कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन।

मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भुर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि ।।

                                                                                 (Bhagavad Gita 2.47)

Read full commentary by Swami Mukundananda

     "Work with full dedication. Do not be careless while performing your tasks. But do not get attached to the fruits of those works."

Shree Krishna again says:

योगिनः कर्म कुर्वन्ति संगं त्यक्त्वात्मशुद्धये ।।

                                                         (Bhagavad Gita 5.11)

Read full commentary by Swami Mukundananda

     "A yogi is one who can work without any attachment to the results." If we follow this formula, stress will be abolished from its roots.