Detail, Discipline, & Dedication: A Work Ethic for Devotional Service
All Glory to Sri Guru and Sri Gauranaga
Namaste! In last week’s post, I discussed confronting familial comfort zones, desiring life, knowledge, and happiness, and my first whiff of fulfillment. This sets the stage for my formative experiences in the Monmouth Regional High School (MRHS) football and wrestling programs – this week’s topic – which provided a solid foundation for progressing on my spiritual path. The most significant part of this process was becoming habituated to constantly confronting physical and mental comfort zones, and always being wary of the stifling effect that getting entangled in comfort has on progress in personal development.
Lessons from Football & Wrestling at Monmouth Regional High School
Before my MRHS experiences, although I was raised in a nurturing family environment, I lacked an inner drive or purpose. This recognition is purely retrospective; at the time, I wasn’t aware of this lack. I was just a 16-year-old kid dissatisfied with my social life, who thought joining the football team would help. Little did I know that the next two years would be filled with endless discomfort and humbling experiences, which I valued every minute. Looking back, I can see that these experiences were Krishna’s mercy preparing me to serve the Vaishnavas.
After expressing my desire to play football, one of the MRHS teachers directed me to Mr. Morrell, an English teacher who coached the offensive line. During his collegiate career, Coach Morrell was an offensive lineman and team captain weighing 275 pounds and standing at 6’2. When I met him at MRHS, it became clear that his personality was as big, if not bigger, than his physical frame. Coach Morrell possessed a high level of intensity for motivating players to become people of integrity who can overcome adversity. His formula for success – attention to detail, discipline, and dedication – surpassed athletic competition and applied to the nuances of daily life. Through his roles as a football and wrestling coach, as well as an educator, Coach Morrell was blessed with the capacity to instill such values in young people on and off the field or mat.
He would often shout “Outwork! Outphysical! Outcompete!” to get us pumped up and mentally focused on improving, rather than dwelling on our exhausted physical condition. Coach Morrell taught us to “Finish stronger than you started!”, meaning we should follow through in an important action to its completion, with a greater level of energy and enthusiasm than when we began despite becoming fatigued by the process. The phrase “Steel sharpens steel” stretched across the black and yellow walls inside the gymnasium. We’d watch motivational videos, the most memorable of which was Eric Thomas’ “When you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe” speech, which was about the need for a deep intensity of desire and single-minded focus to achieve a goal. For the 16-year-old version of myself, this was deeply inspiring, and I was willing to give as much time as necessary to learn what Coach Morrell was teaching. This involved two years of summer camps for both sports, 6AM clubs before class, and countless hours of practice after school. Ironically, I wasn’t even good at football or wrestling, and although I slightly improved by the end of my MRHS experience, it was never about the athletics.
It’s funny, growing up, my parents engaged me in every kind of recreational sport – from basketball and soccer to swimming and karate – except for the more serious physical contact sports. For some odd reason, without ever wanting to play football or wrestle, I mysteriously gravitated towards these sports as I started to mature and broaden my horizons. Despite my deficiency, somehow, by Krishna’s arrangement, I started varsity for both sports in my senior year. For the offensive line, I played left guard and weighed 160 pounds. The right guard was around 180 pounds, and everyone else on the “chain gang” was 200+ pounds. They had three years of experience, and I had one. Just imagine how that went. For wrestling, I took over the 160-pound weight class about halfway through the season, even though my weight dropped down to 145-150 due to the rigor of wrestling practices. The weight of the real competitors in that class is mainly from their muscle mass; only in the classes above does fat start becoming a factor in their weight. I lost all of my matches except once, when someone had to forfeit before the match began. So, it certainly wasn’t the glory of athletic success keeping me in those programs. Something deeper was happening, and exactly what this entailed wouldn’t be clear until I met my Guru, His Holiness Sripad Bhakti Madhava Puri Maharaja, PhD. The lessons from the MRHS football and wrestling programs equipped me with the mental toolkit necessary to fully commit to my spiritual path and remain resilient in the face of the unique adversity associated with promulgating the work of the Princeton Bhakti Vedanta Institute.
Full video from Erik Massimino here
Man Proposes, God Disposes
Attention to detail, discipline, and dedication are all necessary aspects of any serious education, especially a spiritual one. In the yogic discipline of Bhakti-yoga, engaging in devotional service under the affectionate guidance of a bonafide Guru is essential to dispel the darkness of ignorance and to cultivate self-realization, which reaches its perfection in love of God. Having a sharp ear to discern the nuanced details of the Guru’s teachings and instruction is of central importance.
Regarding successful action, the deep intensity of desire and single-minded focus on achieving a goal that Coach Morrell and Eric Thomas spoke of are not enough to make something happen. Ultimately, there is a Higher Power pulling the strings, and we are mere puppets in the loving hands of that Supreme Controller (Isvara), Who is known by many Names. In the purport to Srimad Bhagavatam 3.4.11, Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada explains that:
“Everyone is at liberty to desire as he likes, but the desire is fulfilled by the Supreme Lord. Everyone is independent to think or desire, but the fulfillment of one’s desire depends on the supreme will. This law is expressed as ‘Man proposes, God disposes.’ In the days of yore, when the demigods and Vasus performed sacrifice, Uddhava, as one of the Vasus, desired to enter into the association of the Lord, which is very difficult for those busy in empiric philosophical speculation or fruitive activities. Such persons have practically no information of the facts about becoming an associate of the Lord. Only the pure devotees can know, by the mercy of the Lord, that the personal association of the Lord is the highest perfection of life.”
In a conversation with Srila Prabhupada, my Guru, Madhava Puri Maharaja, was earnestly trying to reconcile how desire is the root of everything.
Madhava: How do I do it by just desiring? How is it done?
Prabhupada: By desire you are creating everything. Why these material varieties? You desire. In the spiritual world also, varieties. Desire, you want to serve Krishna as His friend, you want to serve Krishna as His lover, you want to serve Krishna as His father, as His servant, or you want to serve Krishna by supplying fruits and flowers, or river Yamuna. Everything, whatever you like, Krishna will give you opportunity, in this material world — in the spiritual world.
As the Vaishnavas acknowledge, when single-minded and intense desire transcends mundane and exploitive activities, it becomes the sole means by which the perfection of human life is attained. In Sermons of the Guardian of Devotion Vol 1, Srila Bhakti Rakshak Sridhara Dev-Goswami Maharaja explains:
“Of course, sincerity is the main requirement for faith’s connection. No price, however valuable in this world, can purchase it. The qualification is laulyam — our sincere and earnest desire for the thing. No one can purchase the Absolute, and no price can purchase Him. The absolute necessity is our sincere desire and earnestness. With insincerity, we cannot make trade with Him; He is not so foolish as to become an object of trade for anybody! Sincere desire for Him is required, and that will awaken the conception to serve Him. We want Him, sincerely — through affection. We love Him, so we desire Him. And to love means to sacrifice for the object of our love.”
What good is a hammer and nail without a wall to drive the nail into? Similarly, what’s the point of developing a work ethic without a worthwhile goal? This was my dilemma after graduating from high school in 2012. It wouldn’t be until 2018 that something could capture my heart and unwavering commitment in the way that the MRHS football and wrestling programs did. But before getting to the life-changing events of 2018, I’ll reflect on the numerous divergent yet interconnected experiences involving being a non-traditional undergraduate student, New Age beliefs, indigenous Native American perspectives, and ancient Vedic wisdom I encountered in search of lasting inner fulfillment.
Sri Krishna Sharanam Mamah
Regarding the image at the beginning of this blog post, where Krishna is seen wrestling, interested readers might like to know that Krishna’s fondness for wrestling is described in Srimad Bhagavatam 10.43.31-38.
