Life’s Challenges Are Not to Be Avoided

A common perspective regarding ­major challenges is that we would prefer life without them. Why would anyone want to face all these difficult times, to regularly wake up in the morning and be seriously challenged by life? My guru, Sivaya Subramuniyaswami, held a different perspective. He stated, “This is why we are born on this planet, to evolve through challenges. We are here for no other reason.“ What Gurudeva was telling us is that it is actually by living through karmas and thereby gaining better control over our instinctive and intellectual natures that we progress spiritually...