Life's Seven Challenges

The seven challenges to being a good human being are: Humility, Patience, Acceptance of Fate, Surrender, Simplicity, Detachment and Harmony with Nature.

The theme underlying all of the challenges is the basic struggle to be a well-balanced, good-hearted person. There is a story about two monks who are walking along when one asks the other about his goals in life. The one monk replies, "I'd like to be a saint. Why? What are your goals?" The other monk says, "I just want to be a good human being." The first monk responds, "You are very ambitious."

Humility: Whatever qualities or attributes we possess were given to us. They were not our doing. We didn't create our intelligence, competence with languages, artistic skills, or ability to deal well with people. These are, quite literally, gifts. As we develop spiritually, we increase our ability to help or heal others. We can become better vehicles for healing or helping, but we are not the originators of that energy. Part of the purpose of spiritual development is to help others, but that is not a way or an excuse for making ourselves more important or powerful.

Patience: Spiritual development takes a very long time and is a slow and painstaking process. It is work that does not end. There is no 'getting there.' There is only more insight, and the reward is more work.  Impatience merely hampers our progress. It is as inappropriate as standing in your garden screaming at a seedling to grow faster, to hurry up and bloom.

Blooms once a year

Acceptance of Fate: We can't control reality. But we can control the way we deal with whatever happens. We can feel defeated by a particular event and wail at the heavens, or we can choose to view the event as a challenge, a test of our ability to maintain faith no matter what the circumstance. But an understanding that some things are beyond our control is a wisdom and can simply be accepted as gracefully as possible.

Surrender: We want to naturally live on faith that our struggles have some meaning, that our efforts are not in vain. We must surrender have faith in the forces that impel our lives.

It is an excellent time to surrender in meditation. In particular, we must surrender the ego. We need to bypass the intellect and the ego so that higher spiritual forces can communicate with our Inner Selves. Having a fundamental faith in the power and benevolence of those forces are good to cultivate so that we can truly let go and surrender ourselves to their care.

Simplicity: One of the greatest compliments the Teacher pays a person is to say that he or she is 'simple'; meaning open, direct, or uncomplicated. In our culture we tend to respect complexity, and we use our minds to make things 'more interesting', that is, more complex. But in meditation the intellect and complexity frankly has no place. The Teacher said once that it is very difficult for a complicated person to become simple. It is much easier, however, for a simple person to become complicated. One just needs to learn to constantly ask, "Why?" 

Impartial Observer

Detachment: When we learn to accept fate and surrender our egos and intellects we learn to have more detachment in our everyday lives. This does not mean that we don't care about things, people, or our responsibilities. We still experience strong emotions and can be deeply involved in many areas. But we learn to maintain a certain perspective, to see things in context rather than merely from the narrow viewpoint of our own egos. When someone infuriates us, we still feel the rage. In addition, however, we learn to have the discipline to also view the situation impersonally, as if we were an impartial observer.

It is good to learn detachment from our past patterns of behavior. Many of us define ourselves as victims for whom everything seems to go wrong, or as scapegoats who are always hated and picked on, or as underachievers/overachievers. We may learn to not define or limit ourselves in terms of stereotypes or anything else. And we may learn to detach ourselves from our own destructive habits.

Harmony with Nature: The final challenge is to consistently harmonize and flow with what is natural: Both the natural flow of the Universe and the flow of our own Inner natures. In meditation we learn to 'go with the flow' and to blend with different energies. In day-to-day life we strive to live in harmony with nature, not upsetting the natural balance of our world. 

Summary: It is good to consistently try to master the Seven Challenges, and integrate these values into our everyday lives. True spiritual development is measured by the goodness of our hearts and actions, not in our accomplishments and fame in the mundane world. Nor in our ability to meditate well. This, however, does not minimize the immense value of meditation.