The Divine Fortress

All our lives, we are busy making a fortress – our Divine fortress!

Each moment that we live, we put a brick in the fortress. The quality of that brick is instrumental in how the fortress is eventually going to be. Each brick can be uplifting, joyful, energetic, light, strong OR it may be sad, dull, heavy, dark! These are two extremes, but there can be many shades of these between the two extremes. Since we are laying bricks in the fortress every moment, our palace is defined not by one particular moment, but by each of these bricks, these small moments!

And then there is the glue that joins these bricks. The stronger the glue is, the stronger the palace will be. This glue is the underlying cause or purpose that connects the different moments that we create in our lives. If the underlying purpose with which we do our job is to get money AND if the underlying purpose with which we do our family duties is to ensure their well-being or to get their love or respect AND if the underlying purpose with which we meditate or serve is to love God, then these bricks are not glued as strongly as if the underlying purpose in all these three is the same – perhaps seeing God in work, God in our family, God within. Then the glue makes each of these different bricks join so much more strongly and our palace becomes stronger.

What if we break our day in every hour. Leave aside the 7 hours that we sleep, there are almost 17 hours left in the day. Which means 17 bricks to lay in the palace. Usually we focus on the “good” bricks – perhaps the one-to-two hours that we spend in meditation and seva. So those are clearly the “golden bricks”. And we think that since we have laid out the golden bricks, we don’t need to worry about the type of 15 more bricks that we then lay during the day. But then see the proportion – 2 out of the 17 bricks in our palace will be golden, while the remaining 15 can as well be made of sand! So each brick, each moment, is important.

And then the strength and beauty of the palace not only comes from the bricks and the glue, but also from the water and air and sunlight that is put to it. Which is equivalent to the 75% that comes from our Masters and grace of God, as is said on our path. If we build a palace in a place that has good sunlight, good air and water, the palace will surely be a strong one, as compared to making the palace using the same bricks, same glue, but perhaps in a marshy or swamped place. And for a devotee, that place is the one where His palace can get the opportunity of Satsang – to meet other gurubhais, of seva – where he gets the opportunity to serve the work of his Guru – which is a HUGE opportunity, where he can be checked and corrected and kept in the right path. That is the ideal place for the palace to DRAW the air and sunlight and the water!

And what happens when the palace is strong? It is unaffected by the wind, by rain, by thunderstorms, it is unaffected by too much heat, too much cold. It can focus on laying the next golden brick rather than keep fixing a crack in the wall or a leak on the roof! These cracks in the wall or hole in the roofs are actually the things that keep us busy because they need immediate fixing – ill health needs to be fixed, lack of income or sustenance needs to be fixed, poor relationships need to be fixed. So we keep working on doing these fixes, not realising that while doing these fixes that we are laying more bricks in the process – which are bound to break in the future and will need more fixing! That results in an endless cycle.

So if we live every moment to lay a golden brick with joy, upliftment, light, energy, positivity, then we will be living in a fortress which will be a fortress that will have an aura to protect us from any outward circumstance so that we can inwardly commune with thee and merge in Him 🙏

– Nitendra Rajput