I guess because the more we progress, the more obstacles we are given to keep progressing. If it was easy then it wouldn’t be worth the reward.

But yeah, I know what you mean :/

Strength to everyone!

Amy

Hi Apakhana,

Like Amy said, I know what you mean...

But it depends on how we look at it, too.

Sure, things get harder and there doesn’t seem to be any inner peace (except of course when we are aware).

However, if we look back at how we handled the little things in the past - a friend being a little rude to us or being anxious about a midterm, etc., we can see that improvements have been made and that internally these situations are easier to face than before.

As for why they get harder, I'd second what Amy mentioned in that we need to face more difficult circumstances to progress. With the right spiritual attitude, difficulties can sometimes be very pleasant because we see the wonderful learning opportunities being presented to us. Still not easy, though.

Strength to all!

Mike

There is a saying which I enjoy to tell to my self: "The harder it is, the better it is."

Things are just happening in this way for each one of us because we did (or didn't do) efforts for them to come on us like that. Thus, we should always be grateful for anything that is coming our way.

Strenght to everyone.

We all have to start from where we are, even if that means continually restarting. I often wonder why I have to deal with such difficult things but when I look back over other hardships which I've overcome I can see the value in pushing through to achieve a better state internally and externally.

It's important for us to try and gather all the faith we gain from past experiences and use it to keep going. It's definitely worth it!

One must know darkness, before appreciating the light

Freedom is not understood nor appreciated until we have truly experienced imprisonment and suffering

The harder it is to achieve something, the more it is going to mean to us upon looking back at our efforts

Don't give up

Túrin

Hi Apakhana,

Yes, perhaps, like it was said, it works both ways.
A person can overcome one obstacle just to meet another one, more difficult; but from another side, with sustainable progress, impossible things in the past can become possible now, and likely, should be easier in the future.

Best wishes to everyone!

Vadim

Before I found gnosis hard times fell upon me, in those times I felt miserable and had no way of getting out of it, until time took me to more pleasurable circumstances. Now I go through hard times, or just varying situations of temptation (of all sorts), different social environments and I have the choice to use them. Not just to learn about my egos, but to discover the peace of my consciousness and that is truly worth it!!

Today for example I was doing some group work for uni and I think I used this time very poorly, without my focus on the spiritual work and very poor focus.

Tomorrow I will be in a similar situation all day and I will endevour to strive to be in awareness and not bogged down in daydreams and thoughts that are the cause of my misery.
I hope I use it as I should have used today... Having that purpose is something I don't understand how I used to live without.

All the best to everyone and much strength in all your work!!
The peace of the consciousness is worth fighting for!!!

Hi Dean,

I remember, for me too It was very challenging to do for a long time a group work at school and work on myself in the same time.

For me, the big challenge was to keep fighting continously, every single moment, for all the duration of our work; but perhaps, even more challeging, was to apply the efforts everywhere where they were needed.
Like, oftenly it seemed that I missed watching not to get tense physically, kept feeding lust with fast looks around, was getting fascinated with too much thinking about the problem we faced in the school work, etc.

So, good luck with it!

Yes, the peace of the consciousness is so much worth of fighting for!

I think with questions like this, it helps to look at how things would be if the opposite were true. What if things did get easier instead of harder? I guess it would, well, make things easier, but I don't think we would learn much. It's like solving tricky problems in school...it takes a bit of work and you might not always know the answer right away, but when you figure it out you say, "Aha!" and have learned something new.

Cheers,
Kevin