Here’s a woman who was in pain for many, many years. About 3 days of short chats over Whatsapp and this is what she said. The spiritual path way is not about never having problems. Sometimes there is no light at the end of the tunnel, sometimes it is as if there is nothing but pain.

The spiritual pathway is about choices. When your world is falling apart, can you surrender to the pain? When your life is perfect, can you surrender to the joy? And believe it or not, even that is rarely done. And there’s immense freedom in that state – sometimes it is almost like you’re smiling behind those inconsolable sobs. 

One of the most powerful paragraphs I have read recently in Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts sums it up –

It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured. I realised, somehow, through the screaming of my mind, that even in that shackled, bloody helplessness, I was still free: free to hate the men who were torturing me, or to forgive them. It doesn’t sound like much, I know. But in the flinch and bite of the chain, when it’s all you’ve got, that freedom is an universe of possibility. And the choice you make between hating and forgiving, can become the story of your life.