Radhanath Swami on Facing Reversals

Reversals, even the most difficult ones, have the potential to be the greatest opportunities in our life. The nature of material existence, even when we come to the spiritual path, is that we are conditioned that things should go our own way. Material existence is a consciousness by which I am the controller, I am the enjoyer, I am the proprietor. And therefore we very much are accustomed to expect things to go our way. And if things don’t go our way depending on our nature we may become angry, vengeful, we may fight, we may give up, become depressed, commit suicide, withdraw from society - these are among the different ways the conditioned soul deals with his emotional crisis that “things are not going my way”. Now when we come to spiritual life, we still have our same conditionings. It is not that as soon as we come to the spiritual path, we are pure.