Spiritual Struggle

For some rare souls, grace descends unbidden, transformation dawns, and the heavens spontaneously embrace them. The rest of us need to work at it. Spiritual struggle is one key part of that inner work. But to understand what struggle means in this context, its many layers, its approaches, and its traps, is not so easy. Nothing about struggle is easy. We bear in mind that the purpose of spiritual struggle is the development of our soul and the integration and purification of our will. We also bear in mind, that though struggle is an important part of our inner work, it is not the only part, and by itself is not enough. A complete path involves struggle, and much more besides.

The levels of struggle correspond to the levels within us. The first is the struggle for the necessities of life: for ourselves, for our family, for our society. We engage in the ongoing struggle to earn our living, contribute to society, and play our role well, without identifying with that role.

Then there is the struggle with our body, our emotions, or our mind. At this level we go against some habit or pattern. Body examples include working against laziness by setting ourselves to do a certain amount of physical work or exercise, going against hurrying by intentionally slowing down, or giving up a particular food we like for a set period of time. The struggle against substance abuse and other destructive addictions falls into this category and has lasting value if it results in a permanent change. In the realm of emotions, we might struggle against inwardly or outwardly criticizing other people, including for example other drivers or people with political views at odds with our own. If we are shy, we might struggle to be more outgoing for a time. In the realm of the mind, we might struggle not to be so lost in daydreams or in associative and automatic trains of thought, or not to be so stuck on the superiority of our opinions. If we talk a lot, we might struggle to be more concise.

These few examples from the endless possibilities are not applicable to everyone. We each need to find our own appropriate targets for struggle. We might engage with one particular struggle for a set period of time. The aim is to generate energy by holding apart the poles of desire and wish. Between those poles we find energy we can use for our soul, for our spiritual development, for seeing how things are in us. In holding the poles apart, we develop our will and increase our freedom in front of desires, in front of likes and dislikes.

A trap can emerge when the struggle involves going against some of our personality traits, habits, likes, or dislikes. The trap is believing that changing our personality is the purpose of spiritual struggle. This is alluring because eliminating undesirable aspects of our personality or creating desirable ones can make us seem like a better person. The problem is the endless parade of features we might deem undesirable about ourselves and that such changes typically do little to develop our soul or purify our will. While efforts to improve our personality may well be worth making, if we fall into substituting or mistaking self-improvement for spiritual inner work, we take a detour away from the path. We seek to transcend our ordinary self, not just improve it. Our struggle is not aimed against something [1], but rather aimed at serving the sacred by developing our soul.

Another level is the struggle to engage in spiritual practices: to spend an adequate amount of time each day in meditation and/or prayer; to sense our body more often, more strongly, more completely, and for longer; to be in our body, heart, and mind simultaneously; to be present more often, more strongly, more completely, and for longer; to practice kindness and non-judgmental listening.

Another level is the struggle to deepen our inner work, to explore our inner worlds and the sacred, and to take initiative and responsibility for our own spiritual development. No one can do our work for us, and our time is limited. We need to bring our best to this effort.

There is the struggle to recognize and not be subject to our self-centered egoism, and to purify our will thereby. We will address that in the next installment of this inner work series.

Then there is the struggle to give spiritually, to serve the spiritual ecosystem, to generate and transform higher energies, to open our soul to the sacred, to realize our personal destiny.

Because it broadens the reach of our will beyond any one perception or consideration, struggle with oneself expands our present moment. Additionally, struggle generates sensitive energy, awakens consciousness, and illuminates our inner life. The key is not to identify with the struggle or with winning a struggle, not to identify with what we struggle against, but rather to remember that we struggle for presence, for freedom, and for the purification and integration of our will. The struggle is for a wish, the wish to be present, the wish to be able to serve in as deep a manner as possible, and against sleep, complacency, and wandering on a spiritual plateau. The struggle is to be awake enough to notice all the impulses and desires, and not automatically act on them, to see that those temporary and fragmentary I's are not who we are, and to reclaim them, let them all be, and bring them back under one umbrella.

For this week, please renew your own spiritual struggle.

[1] Jeanne de Salzmann; The Reality of Being: The Fourth Way of Gurdjieff; Shambhala, Boston & London, 2010; p. 18

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