How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall?

One of my coworkers tried this old joke recently,
only to receive the response, "What is Carnegie Hall?"
Cultural literacy makes all the difference.
If you are of an age and station in life
where you a) don't know what Carnegie Hall is
and b) haven't actually heard this old joke...

a) Carnegie Hall is a performance venue for truly great musicians.
b) How do you get there? Practice, practice, practice.

I've been practicing lately.
I finally got the long desired piano.
My 8 years of piano lessons
were 25 years ago.
How is that possible?

I decided I wanted to play
the Maple Leaf Rag.
I discovered that piece of music
was way beyond me.

So, I've practiced it
one hand at a time,
VERY SLOWLY.

And you know what? I'm picking up
both speed and accuracy.

One day, with practice,
I'll be able to play it
with much less effort.

I've also started juggling again.
I learned to juggle in high school
and college,
back when I had no internet,
cable TV or social life to attend to.

You improve
by practicing.
I'm currently working
on throwing a ball behind my back
and catching it.
Sometimes I catch,
sometimes I pick it up.

More and more often,
I'm catching.

So here is the thing.
Everything worthwhile
requires slow painful effort
that slowly becomes second nature.

Ghandi told his followers
that he didn't want them to start out
as pacifists.
He wanted them to understand
to acknowledge
and to claim the fact
that they really would prefer
to shoot their enemies.
BANG.

Only by honestly examining
their natural tendency towards violence
could they slowly begin
to practice a more peaceful
way of relating to the world.

How do you get to spiritual wholeness?

Practice, practice, practice.