Merging with Siva Lesson 65

[Guest guest]

Lists,

Lesson 65 from Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami:

 

 

Tuesday

 

Lesson 65

 

Encountering Disappointment

 

Another instinctive response to the ebb and flow of life force is

disappointment, which intensified becomes discouragement, depression and

despair. These three negative states are obstacles to all human endeavor,

especially for the spiritual seeker, who must learn early to regulate,

control and balance the emotional ups and downs so well that he never

experiences discouragement, which is nothing more than an imbalance

of force.

 

 

 

Life tests and retests our emotional maturity. Whether we meet those

tests or fail is entirely up to us. On the Saivite path, the satguru gives

the tests in order to mold and strengthen the seeker's character. Great

strength of character is required to attain spiritual goals, enormous

courage and forbearance, and anyone who lacks that strength and stamina

will cease striving long before full realization is attained.

 

 

 

Therefore, to bring out the natural strengths, the guru will offer

challenges. He knows that we all fall short of our own expectations

now and again, and that we react either positively by reaffirmation

or negatively through discouragement. As the tests of life present

themselves, the satguru will observe the seeker's response time and time

again until his emotional body grows strong enough to combat negative

reaction to what appears to be failure and later to absorb within itself

all reaction to disappointment, the father of discouragement.

 

 

 

It is the day-to-day reactions to circumstance that indicate the

attainment and not mere recorded knowledge about the path. When the

aspirant is able to meet ordinary happenings and respond to them in the

effortless wisdom born of detachment, that indicates that his striving is

genuine. When he is able to encounter conditions that send ordinary people

into states of disappointment or discouragement and when his emotional

nature indicates mastery over these lesser states of consciousness,

he is well on his way toward filling the gaps of a natural growth of

the instinctive vehicles--body, emotions and intellect.

 

 

 

But to attain emotional stability, recognition of those vulnerable

areas must be cultivated. It is quite natural to encounter circumstances

that are potential sources of disappointment. The very recognition and

admission are half of the necessary adjustments. As one set of conditions

is resolved, another set of a more intense vibration arises naturally

to be mastered. With disappointment reined in, the aspirant next faces

tendencies of discouragement, then depression and finally despair, for

they are all linked together in the instinctive nature of humankind. Once

he recognizes these states as belonging to all men and ceases to identify

them as personal tendencies, he is then able to cognize its source and

convert it. In this way the emotional nature matures under the loving

guidance of the spiritual teacher.

 

 

Mahabhakti

M