"that I remember as particularly abusive and made me feel so inadequate and hopeless that I just crept back to my tent and wept"
Thank you Tim. You really captured it... much like I remember that festival. I mentioned it before, but like you, I tried so hard to do everything right at that festival. All my eggs were in that basket. I meditated for hours every day, did service and sat like a statue intensely focused on every word he said while glued to the Word (before it bacame the third technique) and with my tongue curled back. I tried everything. Went down the whole list... letting go, surrendering, emptying my cup, heart of a child - begging for anything - and then some. But I still wasn't feeling it, even after darshan. Walking back to a rented motor home* one night after Arti with a towel over my shoulder, I came across a plastic bucket. Out of frustration, I threw-in the towel and kicked the bucket. (Even that didn't work.)
But no, that didn't stop me from hanging in there for another thirty years!! You know why? Because devotion has nothing to do with day-to-day experience! Ask any premie. Like a camel dung ladu, some days Knowledge tasted like s#1t, but I practiced it anyway because somebody told me it was what was keeping me alive and I might shatter in a million pieces if I ever broke "that connection." Almost as bad as entertaining a doubt!
I probably shouldn't mention this, but to add insult to injury after that bucket episode, it was my turn to empty the motorhome holding tank the next day. Suffice it to say that I should've read the instructions before I opened the valve.
* We crammed sixteen of us into two rented motor homes because it was cheaper overall than separate cars and tents.
