I once heard an old saying that kept me busy thinking for a long time:
“The most creative act you can undertake is the act of creating yourself.”

This may not always be as easy as it sounds. Often we would like to move on in our lives, but we can’t. Whether there are small and great attachments, personal weaknesses, bad karma or simply insecurity and fear that hold us back, we just don’t seem to “get our feet out of the door.” Or if we manage to take the first steps onto the road of change, we quickly retreat back to our old habits.

But in many cases, that which holds us back is insignificant in comparison to where we wish to go. Why is this so?

There is an old Arabian proverb, which I once heard from an old Bedouin:
“It is not the road ahead that wears you out – it is the grain of sand in your shoe.”

There is a very efficient method in the Vaisnava tradition, which gives us the required strength of heart to get “that grain of sand” or that material attachment out of the way so that we may be free to move on: Turn to the Lord.

By hearing about the amazing pastimes of Lord Sri Krishna and serving the ‘Great Ones’, all that is troublesome to the heart (and feet) is almost reduced to nothing. On our own it may be difficult to move on but by hearing about Krishna from pure souls the strength of the heart increases so that a natural longing awakens. This longing will overcome all obstacles – small or great – that lie in front of us. By such hearing from the right sources the Lord appears in the heart and when that happens where is the difficulty?

As the French writer A.d.S. Exupery expressed:
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”

All else follows!