Chapter 11

How to Meet Life’s Difficulties and Perplexities

THE spiritual life is beset with problems and difficulties. If a student is fairly advanced his life is free from the disorder produced by wrong thinking and through acting against the harmony of the Divine Order, but he has to pass through a series of initiations, each one bringing him nearer to the Heart of Divine Being. Pilgrims of the Path are like children at school. They have to pass through examination after examination in order to test their fitness for promotion to higher classes. As Olive Mercer says in her beautiful book, Life Transcendent, “Tests are fitted to each individual. No one would complain about his fiery ordeals did he but realize how necessary they are for him at certain stages of unfoldment. We call our own initiations upon us by knocking at the door of a higher classroom. Impatiently we want to enter a bigger school of experience, but first we must show our certificate. We must prove that we have the ability to cope with life’s small experiences before we are allowed to rush recklessly through new doors. Is anyone ready to sail the high seas when it fills him with terror to cross the sheltered harbour?’’

Many, therefore, are the perplexities which come to the traveller along the Path of Spiritual Attainment, and each one of them is necessary. Each experience is exactly the test that we require at the time in order to prepare us for what lies before us, to test our fitness or worthiness, and, most important of all, to bring us a step nearer to the Heart of Being.

One who has realised the great truth that life consists of a series of initiations and that each experience is necessary and exactly suited for the needs of the moment, such never complains of life’s experiences. He may not welcome difficult or perplexing circumstances with enthusiasm, but he never complains or finds fault. For one thing, he knows that he will come safely through them if he is patient and steadfast, looking to God, and trusting entirely to the Spirit in the face of seeming disaster or apparently insuperable difficulty.

In spite of this knowledge, born of experience by the way, the pilgrim at times finds his path very dark and his burden of perplexities about as much as he can bear. The great thing to do at these times is to go right up to the difficulty. Suffering, terror, anxiety, are due to an unwillingness to meet the trouble or difficulty. When, however, we walk right up to it, knowing that we can be led only to our highest good, the threatened evil passes away, and Divine Love and Wisdom stand revealed.

A short time ago a student of Truth wrote to us in great trouble. Terrible things were looming ahead, and the burden of the letter was: “How can I escape this threatened trouble?” Our reply was: “Take hold of God’s hand and go right up to the trouble, meeting it bravely instead of trying to avoid it.’’ The next letter told us that our advice had been followed, and the threatened trouble had turned out to be Love in disguise.

This advice may sound absurdly simple, suitable only for Sunday School children, but we were able to offer it only because we had learnt its truth through actual experience. At one time we were faced with a situation which filled us with dismay, if not actual terror. When, however, like a flash, we realized that we could be led only to that which is good, and when we surrendered entirely to God, asking Him to lead us wherever He willed, for wherever it might be, it could be only for our real and highest good, when this realization came to us our trouble faded away, and rest and peace descended upon us, filling our soul with great thankfulness, peace, and joy.

There is another object in perplexing and trying experiences, but this must be described in our next chapter.