Incremental Changes Happen Slowly - You Might Not See Any Improvement For Years

Hey everyone!

I hope that you guys are doing amazing wherever you are in the world.

My name is Boomshekha and I welcome you to my channel.

As always,

I'm so grateful that you're listening,

Subscribing and commenting.

I really appreciate the support.

In this one,

I wanted to speak to you about a question that a friend of mine asked me recently.

She had a song to her about my meditation practice,

My yoga practice and my spiritual practice in general.

She had the question of how my practice is different from where it was a few years back.

If I've noticed any progress,

How does it seem from where I was previously to where I am right now?

One of the things that I did realize from talking to her is that my meditation practice and my yoga practice in general,

My spiritual practice in general,

I would say,

Is 100 times different from where it was even just a year ago if I could say that.

The amount of progress that I'm making right now from my meditation and from my yoga sessions is so much more profound and so much more effective than it was previously.

I'm saying this from the perspective of a person who has been practicing both of these things,

Meditation and yoga,

For about 12-13 years now.

I believe I started doing both of these in yoga.

I was doing it longer than that.

But I started meditating in 2008,

I believe,

Consistently.

In any case,

It's been a while,

A long time.

I've been doing it pretty much consistently for those years,

Every single day getting up and doing my meditation practice,

Every single day getting up and perhaps going to yoga class or doing a yoga practice at home or just doing a few sun salutations.

In general,

Consistently over a long period of time.

The progress that I've made in the first few years,

The first 10-11 years,

I would say,

Besides the last year,

Was pretty much negligible,

I would say.

I shouldn't say that.

It wasn't completely negligible.

There were a lot of changes that were happening in my life.

The reason I'm living this amazing life right now is because of my practice.

I did make a lot of changes,

Tangible changes I could see in my life from the practice and in myself as well.

There were a few changes.

But the amount of changes that have happened to me and the amount of changes that I've noticed in the past few months of doing practice are exponentially higher than the last 11-12 years of practice.

I was wondering about that and I told my friend about this as well.

She and I agreed that it's basically the same thing as everything else in life.

You do something for a long period of time and you notice no difference at all.

You don't notice any kind of changes.

For example,

A fitness regime or a workout regime is a pretty good example of that.

You go to work out and the first day you notice nothing.

The first month you notice perhaps a few changes but not that much.

And then the 6 months later you're like,

Yeah,

I see a few changes but not that profound.

But perhaps 9 months later or a year later you're a completely different person all of a sudden.

And you're like,

What?

What happened?

I didn't notice that many changes for a long time and all of a sudden I'm completely different.

And I noticed this for myself as well in my practice because I feel exactly the same way.

I feel like I worked out on my practice.

I worked and worked and worked on my practice for months,

Years,

Decades almost.

More than a decade.

And noticed a few changes.

Not that many changes but a few changes.

Thankfully I didn't give up.

Thankfully I wasn't like,

Well,

God,

This obviously doesn't work.

The reason I didn't give up was because I was seeing a few changes here and there.

And I was noticing a difference within myself.

And obviously 0.

0001% change every single day does result in a major change after 10-15 years.

But while you're in it,

While you're sitting down and doing the practice every single day,

You're thinking to yourself,

Man,

Is this a waste of time?

Am I kind of just getting up early for no apparent reason at all?

Am I wasting my time?

And a lot of times it was difficult because you get up in the morning and you don't want to practice.

Or you just didn't want to do your meditation.

Or you have to get up early to go to practice before you have to get out and do your work.

Or you're traveling and you have to get up before you're playing right.

So a lot of cases I would be sitting there thinking,

I could skip today.

And a couple of times I did.

I don't think I was consistent completely throughout all of the years.

But even then,

Considering how long I have been consistent,

I feel like it's actually quite a thing that I can't even believe.

And so,

As I said,

I think the reason why this happened,

And again this is something that I've been realizing for myself,

Is that changes happen slowly in a lot of these cases.

A few changes will happen very quickly.

And I think that's the reason why people get motivated.

Because you do notice a couple of changes.

You're like,

Whoa,

I can't believe this is actually happening.

It's because of my practice.

I'm going to keep on going.

And it's a good thing that happens.

Otherwise you'd be completely unmotivated and you'd never keep on practicing.

But I think those couple of changes are minor and minute.

And they're just there to motivate you and keep you going.

But the real changes,

The real profound changes that we're looking for as a spiritual practice,

A practicer,

As a spiritual person,

Is that we want the big changes.

We want that big epiphany.

We want that big eureka moment.

And I think that happens after a long time of practice.

And I think it's just now happening for me.

And again,

It's happening now.

But as I said,

I've been practicing for a long time without that many profound changes within me.

Little changes,

Of course.

Yes.

And I am a different person compared to where I was 10 years ago.

Of course,

I am a completely different person.

But it is the fact that eventually after 0.

0001% of changes every single day,

Little by little,

Very little,

Little by little,

Little changes by little.

Eventually it becomes big enough for you to actually notice the change.

Right.

Because 0.

0001% like it's very tiny.

It's very minute.

But then over time it adds up and eventually it becomes 1% change and then it results in 10% change and then eventually 100%.

Right.

But it takes a long time to get there.

The reason I wanted to do this video is because my friend said that it would be a good idea to do the video in order to motivate all of you guys who are in that 0.

0001% part of the change.

Right.

Perhaps you are in that phase where you're doing your practice,

You're doing everything right but you're not seeing that many changes and you're thinking to yourself,

Am I wasting my time?

And I wanted to say that,

You know,

It might seem like a waste of time and a lot of times people give up because of that.

And that's again I think the part of the journey is because if you keep on going,

I think that's when you're like,

Alright,

Cool,

I'm going to keep on going.

I know I'm not seeing that many changes but I'll keep on going.

And if you do,

That's when I think the real profound changes happen.

Most people will give up though.

Most people after a while you're like,

I'm not really seeing anything different within me.

I'm just going to do my own thing.

I'm going to go back to being normal.

I'm going to go back to doing what I was doing before.

And I think that's what it is.

It's kind of like a test as well.

So just to kind of motivate you guys to realize that if you are on the spiritual path and you are noticing that you're not getting that many changes happening or you're not making that much,

Not making that many strides in your practice as much as you wish,

Just stick with it.

Stick with it for a little bit longer and then a little bit longer after that and then even a little bit longer after that and then eventually after years and decades of practice,

You will get there.

And I know it kind of sounds like,

Oh my goodness,

Decades.

But what else are you going to do anyways?

You're here in any case,

Right?

And you're here,

You're practicing,

Why not just keep on practicing?

Eventually the change will happen and you'll see it and it will completely profoundly change your life.

So keep on practicing and it will happen.

And I just think it's the whole point of it.

It's the point that most people are going to give up.

But if you are not one of those,

If you are one of those people who doesn't give up,

Then that's when you're really going to reap the benefits of keeping consistent with your practice.

Because it is very difficult.

It's actually one of the hardest things to do is to keep on going despite the fact that perhaps you're not seeing any changes or any results or any effectiveness of it or you're not seeing anything.

You're just like,

Well,

I'm just doing this in a vacuum.

You're not really.

And the changes are happening subtly and minutely under the surface,

Little by little.

Eventually they'll bubble up to the surface.

But they are happening.

It's like when you boil a pot of water for the longest time,

There's nothing.

You know,

It's just a pot of water with the fire underneath.

And then eventually the little bubbles start popping up and then eventually it's a boiling pot of water.

Right.

So but it takes time.

And the first few minutes or moments,

You're just sitting there thinking there's nothing happening.

Oh,

My goodness.

There's nothing happening.

But it is happening underneath the surface.

You know,

The molecules are being changed.

The little profound minute changes are happening at the molecular level in that pot of water and in your being as well.

It's happening at the molecular level,

At the quantum level,

And eventually it's going to show up at the physical level.

It will.

It just takes a little bit of time.

A lot of time sometimes.

I hope this makes sense.

I wanted to share this with you because even though it's a very abstract topic,

I believe that a lot of you are on a spiritual path as well.

Of course,

If you're listening to this,

You probably are.

And so I hope this is useful for you to keep you motivated on this path,

Which can be very lonely and difficult at times.

If you have any questions,

Please do comment below and I shall do a follow up video to explain myself further.

And of course,

If you like the video,

Please support me further by going to my Patreon or Ko-fi link there in the description below.

Thank you so much for listening.

I shall see you the next time around.

Bye.