Viewing the Difficult as Your Advantage

I receive daily emails from Jeff Kober at Vedic Meditation.

They are all very valuable and applicable to my life, however – the one I received yesterday seemed to speak more loudly.

Around me, I noticed several people struggling more with the difficult things/events in their life.

For them – and those of you dealing with life’s obstacles – this is dedicated to you.

An excerpt from ‘My Eyes So Soft’:

Don't

Surrender

Your loneliness so quickly.

Let it cut more

Deep.

Let it ferment and season you

As few human

Or even divine ingredients can.

Something missing in my heart tonight

Has made my eyes so soft,

My voice so

Tender,

My need of God

Absolutely

Clear.

Hafiz, My Eyes So Soft

Emergency C-section. Baby on ventilator.

Fifteen-year marriage breaking up.

Loved one undergoing extraordinary measures in order to stay alive.

Burying a parent, a grandparent, a lover.

Going home alone. Eating alone. Watching TV alone.

These are things happening in the lives of just a few of the people I know. These experiences and others like them are a given. We all will know death, loss, worry, remorse, loneliness. The facts of our life will at times align to appear frightening and perhaps even hopeless.

This is the nature of the relative world. No matter what is happening, it will change. To seek safety and security here is a guarantee of frustration. It cannot be found but for a moment; for as soon as our idea of perfection is achieved, at that very moment everything begins to move away from that perfection. Whatever that idea of perfection is, it cannot be held. It cannot be frozen. It cannot be kept. For indeed, in the relative world, the only constant is change.

Spiritual masters such as Hafiz show us there is a way to know this truth as our advantage, rather than as a handicap.

Loneliness is not an indication that there is something wrong with me. Loneliness simply tells me that I need to find God. A deeper experience of God. In Vedic terms, I must find what I am, the Self that I am, that is other than my relative world experience. I must find the Self that I am that can allow these relative world things to play themselves out as they may.

The power of the loneliness itself--of the fear, of the sorrow, the sadness, the anxiety--this is the motivation. This is the fuel that can drive me to seek a deeper connectedness and a truer experience of what I am.

When looked at like this, all these challenges in my life suddenly can be seen as opportunities. Can I see the beauty of my sorrow? Can I use this experience of death to appreciate life? Can I find God even in the midst of loss? Can I find a definition of happiness that is large enough to encompass even this depth of sadness?

In the midst of my loneliness, can I feel myself connected to that which is much greater, that which is universal, that which is Totality itself? Can I even imagine how that might feel? In that feeling in my imagination, what happens to this loneliness? How is it transformed?

If consciousness is all that there is, and I can imagine something fully in my own consciousness, does that not make it real?

Today I will imagine that every seeming difficulty is in fact a message from God, from nature, that He/She/It is expecting my call. And so I will call. 

You can sign up for Jeff’s emails here on the left-hand side bar.

A little about Jeff: He has spent the last 30 years studying metaphysics and meditation, traveling extensively in India. In 2007, after a lengthy and intensive period of study, Jeff became a teacher of Vedic meditation, and since has taught from his center in Los Angeles, as well as in Mexico City, Chicago, Montana, Wyoming and regularly in New York.
He has written a daily Vedic Meditation thought for over a year and is currently compiling a 365 Meditation Daily Reader.