Life as a Spiritual Path

All the problems that you face in life, all the ups and downs are really the means to your personal evolution. Everything that you face in life, whether pleasant or unpleasant, is really the means to higher awareness. They really help you. Though they may seem to hinder you from a limited and personal viewpoint at this stage, they are really the tests, the means to your eventual transcendence and total understanding of reality.  
– Swami Satyananda Saraswati

Some of us approach the spiritual path with the hope that it will cure all our ills, dissolve our problems and make life easy sailing.  The true purpose however is not necessarily to improve life but to awaken awareness.  It is to develop the inner confidence to face life head on no matter what.  Of course yoga can help us greatly in maintaining health and well being, but there are still times when we will encounter difficulties: illness, loss, pain, loneliness, etc.  It is a matter of the attitude we bring to these situations that will help us to develop our deeper potential.

Our egos are dedicated to avoiding pain and maximizing pleasure.  In doing so, however, we really create more suffering for ourselves in the form of stress, anxiety, addiction, health problems and so on.  When we shift from an ego to a soul perspective we become more open and accepting; we become the witness of experience.  Our egos cling to a temporary situation while our souls witness the passing show.  The problems we face life are actually opportunities to awaken from the dream of the ego into the spaciousness of our essential being. 

I remember when I first heard Swamiji talk about the need to face hardships in life.  Honestly, I really didn’t want to go there.  I think I secretly thought that because I was being a good “chela” that somehow I could squeeze past them.  It is not easy to develop an attitude where you welcome problems into your experience!  Unless we develop this attitude though, we just make things worse.  In fact the only real suffering in life comes from our resistance to ‘what is.’  As Ram Dass puts it, "Within the spiritual journey, you understand that suffering becomes something that has been given to you to show you where your mind is still stuck. It’s a vehicle to help you go to work. That’s why it’s called grace." 

When we are able to accept the problems in our life, we can begin to deal with them in a different way.  First of all, why not reconsider our definition of “problem?”  Perhaps we have created this idea of a problem out of thin air through false interpretation.  It might actually be an adventure, opportunity or a blessing in disguise.  On the other hand some things are not so easy to reframe.  A violent crime or the loss of a loved one, for example are not situations we can easily reinterpret.  They may even challenge our basic sense of trust in ourselves, others and the world.  It may take some time to heal, to reintegrate and to emerge stronger and wiser.

Ultimately, our life journey is about learning to see through our attachments and false identifications, self-centered desires and hatreds.  Freedom lies in awakening to our transcendent being, who is not someone we have to become but who we truly are.  The universe is self-aware in and through us.  When we cling to a limited ego perspective we are bound to suffer; when we expand our awareness we awaken to absolute peace.  Underneath all the changing phenomenon of life there is a vast space of peace, joy and unconditional love.  This is who we truly are.  All the rest is “drama.”