How Do We Stay Devoted to Our Practice When Life Feels Overwhelming?

It’s easy to chant, meditate, or feel close to Maharajji when life is calm. But when the world spins out—when grief, anxiety, or chaos take over—how do we stay anchored? How do we remain devoted when just getting through the day feels like a challenge?

This is a question Maharajji never answered with formulas or rules. Instead, he lived the answer.

1. Keep It Simple: Remember the Name

Maharajji’s constant refrain was: “Repeat the Name.” When things felt too much, he didn’t give complicated rituals—he gave us the simplest and most powerful practice. Just say Ram Ram.

In Be Love Now, Ram Dass reflects,

“Maharajji kept saying, ‘The best form of service is to remember God. Just repeat His name.’”

Even if we can’t meditate or sit for long practices, just whispering Ram in the midst of overwhelm can bring us back to center. That’s devotion in action.

2. Show Up, Even If It’s Messy

Dada Mukerjee wrote that Maharajji didn’t expect perfection—he just expected sincerity. When we feel overwhelmed, our practice doesn’t need to be polished. We can show up with our tears, confusion, even our resistance.

In By His Grace, Dada shares:

“One could go to Baba in any state of mind—he would accept all. His love did not require us to be anything other than what we were.”

This is the heart of practice: not to escape our mess, but to bring it into the lap of the divine.

3. Serve Others, Especially When You’re Struggling

Maharajji said, “Love everyone, serve everyone.” Sometimes the best way to reconnect is to take the focus off ourselves. Even a small act of kindness—a phone call, a smile, a simple prayer for someone else—can dissolve our heaviness.

Seva (selfless service) wasn’t just a task Maharajji assigned—it was a path to grace. As Krishna Das said in Chants of a Lifetime,

“Serving others was Maharajji’s way of keeping us close to the heart.”

When we serve, we remember: we’re part of something greater.

4. Trust That Even the Overwhelm Is Grace

Many devotees shared that even in their darkest times, Maharajji was there—quietly guiding, holding them. Sometimes it wasn’t until later that they recognized those hard moments as the most grace-filled.

Maharajji once said,

“Everything is perfect. Everything is just as it should be.”
Even our struggles. Even our confusion.

That doesn’t mean we pretend things are easy. It means we trust that beneath the surface, love is still working.

Stay Close, However You Can

When life feels overwhelming, we don’t need to force devotion. We just stay close—through the Name, through service, through surrender.

As Maharajji showed us again and again,

“It’s not about doing it right. It’s about staying in love.”

So if all you can do today is whisper Ram once, or place your hand on your heart and say, “I’m here,”—that is enough.

Jai Maharajji.