A short YouTube monologue by Brian Johnson reflecting on guidance from Paramahansa Yogananda about facing life’s difficulties. Johnson urges listeners to view trials as opportunities (‘pickaxes’) that reveal inner spiritual strength, framing challenges as expected parts of a noble, heroic quest and encouraging immediate practice of this philosophy when fear arises.
Chapters
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic plus one. Not too long ago, we spent some time hanging out with Steve Jobs guru Yogananda. As you may recall, we spent some time learning about what to do with ghosts, how to deal with failure in Fighter A and Fighter B. Check out those ones. Today we're going to spend some more time with one of the 20th century's most practical spiritual teachers. In living fearlessly, Yogananda tells us, and I quote, when you are passing through the difficulties and tests of life, you usually become rebellious. Why should this happen to me? Instead, you should think of every trial as a pickaxe with which to dig into the soil of your consciousness and release the fountain of spiritual strength that lies within. Each test should bring out the hidden power that is within you. As a child of God made in his image, he continues by saying, our tests are not meant to destroy us. Only those who are cowards and who don't acknowledge the all perfect image of God within become rebellious and surrender to their trials as though those tests were unconquerable destructive forces. Pop quiz time. What do you do when you are passing through the difficulties and tests of life? Do you complain and whine and act like it shouldn't be happening? Perfect. We all do that more than we'd like to admit. In those moments, let's remember Yogananda's wisdom and rule number one of a noble, heroic quest. It's supposed to be challenging. All caps, by the way. Isn't that a nice warm and fuzzy thing to say? It's so obvious they're an all caps. Bold on the page, isn't it? The trick, of course, is to remember this wisdom right in the moment when the fear arises and our resistance to reality creeps in. Then, with that fear as our prompt trigger cue to practice our philosophy, it's time to move from theory to practice to mastery as we use every tool at our disposal as we step forward and do what we're here to do. Let's do that today.
