“Bring Me Your Failures”

As explained by Maharaj Charan Singh

Failure means that I have done my best to attend to meditation but I couldn’t succeed. Failure doesn’t mean that I never attended to meditation. That is not failure – that is not even attempting.

Failure means I have done my best, I have given my time, I have lived the way of life while I have been trying to build my treasure. From every point of view I have been keeping myself clean, but I have not achieved anything within myself. So this is my failure. That effort will not be lost – that is what is meant by failure. Failure only comes when we are attempting to achieve something and we have not been able to achieve it. When we never attempt to achieve it, then where is the failure? If the child does not even try to learn to walk, he will never learn to walk. If the child is trying to learn to walk, he is bound to fall here and there and get bruises. But he is attempting to learn to walk. So our attempt is there, our efforts are there, but the result is not in our hands.

Naturally those failures are an attempt to go forward, not backward. Every failure reminds us of our success, of where we are lacking. So we should go on putting in our best effort, and then if we fail, we should not be so dejected, but we should try to follow the path again. But if we just fail and do not try to make another attempt to succeed, then of course the Master will not love the failures.
_{Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. II}