Overnight Success

Burlingame, CA

While transiting the Bangkok airport I saw an advertisement in front of a sporting good store featuring the following quote from famous Argentine footballer, Leo Messi: “I trained 17 years to be an overnight success.”

Messi's slogan reminded me about the importance of being patient in one's practice of devotional service. The process of bhakti is so powerful that a steady effort over time will bring unimaginable rewards.

Practicing patience means that one may have to tolerate even one's own shortcomings, going on with the process with confidence that Krishna is so powerful that he can and will elevate even the slowest or most unqualified practitioners.

"One should not be discouraged in the discharge of devotional service. Failures may not be detrimental; they may be the pillars of success. One must have good faith in the regulative principles followed by the self-realized souls, and one should not be doubtful about the ultimate result of such devotional service . . . We should not consider going back to Godhead a plaything. We must take it seriously, as enjoined in the scriptures. For a strict follower, the result is sure and certain, and when the time is right the result will come of its own force."

— Srila Prabhupada — Light of the Bhagavata, Verse 43

Om Tat Sat

Vaisesika Dasa