Self-Realization Fellowship Blog

A short excerpt from a talk given on Christmas Day 1961 entitled “Right Attitude: Harnessing Life’s Difficulties for Positive Achievements,” which is a chapter in Journey With Paramahansa Yogananda, the new collection of talks by Sri Daya Mata. The beloved third president of Self-Realization Fellowship/Yogoda Satsanga Society of India discusses how cultivating right attitude toward life’s inevitable challenges can help us draw closer to God and discover true inner freedom and fulfillment.

Love and understanding, wisdom, health, security, lasting joy — these every person is seeking. Those of us on the spiritual path share the conviction that by communing with God we will attain these goals. Though this is a universal truth, and though the way to divine communion consists of eternal principles applicable to all human beings, in one sense each person follows a very individual and solitary path. That path takes us through the particular circumstances, trials, and lessons that each one of us uniquely needs to reawaken our innate wisdom and the realization of our soul’s perfect relationship with God.

When visited by hard times, our bad habit of believing we are mortal beings makes it easy to succumb to wrong thinking — “Why me? What did I do to deserve this?” — or to feel resentment or anger over the way life treats us. Cultivating right attitude helps us to see those circumstances, no matter how seemingly “unfair,” as opportunities — created by our own personal karma, yet blessed with the underlying grace of God for the specific purpose of hastening the unfoldment of our souls.

Progress is aligned to our understanding that our difficulties come not from other people, not from outer conditions, not from any source but God through His cosmic laws. If we can but hold to the truth that we can use what happens for our ultimate and highest good, we will feel God’s ever-present hand of blessing and will find that our troubles cannot touch us inwardly.

This is why it is so important to have the right attitude toward the circumstances we encounter. I would even go so far as to say that attitude is the basis of everything on the spiritual path. How we face life, how we react to difficulties, how we respond to the inevitable challenges to our well-being and evenmindedness, how we engage in our spiritual practices — these determine how close we draw to the Divine, and how quickly.

So long as we exist on this material plane, there is one thing of which all of us can be certain: the uncertainty of change. This we cannot avoid in a world of duality in which we are incessantly presented with the fluctuations of maya: light and darkness, health and ill health, life and death. Their inconstancy must not cow us down with fear or hopelessness — never! Their purpose is to teach us the lesson of our own transcendent, blissful nature. They are a prod to make us exert the effort to be free of these ceaseless ups and downs. The way to rise above the law of duality is by contacting God — the unchangeable Reality beyond the realm of changes.

We must learn, as Paramahansaji used to say, “to stand unshaken amidst the crash of breaking worlds.” Then we will know we are marching steadily toward God. Ultimately it matters little whether our path leads by the sweet brook of peace or over a rough battlefield of struggle. What matters is that we fix our will, our aspirations, upon the Goal for which we are striving. Perhaps we will stumble at times and get mired in delusion, but if our heart is sincere, if it is deep in its longing for God, He does not let us tarry, He does not suffer us to remain long entrapped. He sends us those experiences, and those graces, by which we can become free.

When anything unpleasant comes into my life, what freedom follows from looking beyond the people or circumstances involved to discern the implicit spiritual lesson. I am humbly grateful for every hurt, every disappointment and misunderstanding, everything of that nature that has come into my life, for I see the good these have done for me — and for all of you who have faced your troubles with this attitude. Difficulties have taught me to run to the One who gives me strength and understanding and love — securing my bond with Him and attunement with that beloved Guru in whose footsteps we strive to walk.

I remember Paramahansaji’s saying to me once, “Your life will be filled with many persecutions, but keep your mind with me.” Guru is our faithful guide to God. No matter what has come, it has not been important to me, for my mind is fixed not so much on the path as on the Goal. The path is not always easy for any of us. But if we continuously ask ourselves, “How can I use every experience to turn my mind more toward God?” then we become the victor. By right attitude we harness life’s heartaches to help us race toward the Divine. 

We invite you to learn more about the new collection of talks by Sri Daya Mata — Journey With Paramahansa Yogananda: Lessons from my twenty years of spiritual training and practice with the author of Autobiography of a Yogi — available for pre-order.