What is the primary purpose of challenges in life
As a popular saying goes, what’s life without its ups and downs, just like that of an ECG report which indicates the activity of the heart, in which every up and down indicates the presence of life and so does life with its challenges and experiences. To think of it deeply, every challenge that comes our way has a hidden purpose, only to bring us closer to what is truly meant for us. No doubt, while in the crux of the challenge, we may lose hope or feel discouraged, but that is where wisdom plays its part and teaches us to embrace whatever lies ahead of us with a straight head and not try to escape it or get intimidated by it.
A challenge can be looked as anything that puts us out of our comfort zone, simultaneously requires us to stay detached internally from the happening that’s external and only experience it as it unfolds in front of us, showing us where we lack and what internal work needs to be done, to help us fit ourselves in our higher self-realised socket. And once we have accepted the purpose of the occurrence and learnt our lesson, the challenge leaves, making us wiser, stronger and one step closer to our ultimate purpose of being. A given situation that we find hard to cope with, brings out the best in us, but that is a process. Like when the Samudra Manthan (churning of the ocean) happened, a lot of vish (poison) had to come out first, eventually giving amrit (elixir),likewise in an unlikely situation when the mind feels stressed, a lot of our internal flaws come out like anger, impatience, jealousy, irritability, judgemental thinking, impulsive decision making and others of the sort, without us even knowing that they existed because the mind was not in such a situation ever before where it felt unprepared and alien. But someone who is on the path of internal awakening would know that this is the time to be grateful for those vikaars to have appeared, only for us to let it go and learn our lesson of not getting entangled in it. An added bonus while doing this would be that our karmic account load also gets adjusted as we have handled the situation with ease and right thinking, because an agitated or troubled mind would never be able to act or respond right, but would only react and get caught in the cycle of making new karmas, making it a never-ending process.
Each day in our life is only for us to realise our true purpose and move ahead in that direction, and here a challenge would only help us fast track the process, provided we have a receptive mind which is ready to learn and not complain. To be able to have kindness and compassion even when in the middle of a challenge, requires immense grace and blessings of an enlightened Guru and their wisdom, which fills us with courage and strength to think right and stay in balance, so much so that in a challenging situation where through another person an action occurs that causes hurt/pain to you, your mind is not only sympathetic towards the other person’s action but has so much empathy that it can feel their pain and helplessness in causing pain to you, without being judgemental or unkind to them and blessing them with all the goodness, for your sake of freedom from the current pain and its impact on the karmic credit that could have potentially incremented in your account otherwise.
During challenging times is also when the mind gets closer to God, seeking advice, grace and help from Him and realising He was only waiting for us to reach out, because like our Guru always says, God is a jealous lover-He loves us so much, He only waits for us to acknowledge His presence and reach out to Him. If we derive pleasure from anything else apart from Him and His presence, it wouldn’t be long that God takes away that from us, just like a jealous lover would. But of course, this is all in a good sense to only make us understand in terms that we relate to and live our daily lives in, that is, we need to feel Him in everything around and within, stay detached to the thing as such, knowing that it’s all sprung from the same higher source of the Almighty, and having free flowing love for it. A difficult situation in life has an underlying purpose of bringing us closer to God as He is the only truth, the only permanence that we can ever want and truly need.
Handling a challenge is a game of perspectives-a wise person would have the perspective of a winner who finds the opportunity to rise and grow, to bounce back even stronger from something that may be currently pulling them downwards, to be able to better themselves internally by coming face to face with their own shortcomings but dealing them with grace and courage, and thereby understanding the subtle indication of Mother Nature that it’s time to inch closer to the reality of the soul, embracing detachment and love parallelly, freeing themselves from bondage of old karmic accounts and not creating any new ones either because the mind is at peace and free of emotions. And by being in the holy company of our Guru, we now understand that we all have the ability to be a winner, all we need is a tweak in our perspective, and understand that the purpose of any challenge is only an occasion of celebration as it's an opportunity to evolve internally.
