Soul Stories #22: You Need Difficulties to Grow

A well-known spiritual leader built a community in France where practitioners would visit from all around the world to learn and be guided by his wisdom. One of the community members was an old man who would not just fight with everyone, but he was messy, never cleaned up after himself, and worst of all didn’t follow many of the teachings or practices. But week after week he would show up to the prayers and meditations, inevitably triggering everyone. Eventually, after several months of creating chaos in the community, the old man was fed up and decided to leave.

The students were ecstatic, but the spiritual teacher pleaded with the old man to stay. The old man said it was too difficult and he didn’t feel like he fit in. The spiritual teacher followed the man out the meditation hall until he finally convinced him to stay with a large monthly stipend. The other students protested and eventually a meeting was called to talk with the teacher. They said, “How come while we pay large sums to be here, you pay this old man, who has been making us all crazy, to stay?”

The spiritual teacher said, “This old man, with all his faults, is like yeast for the bread of your hearts.” As the students contemplated the analogy the teacher continued, “Without this old man’s presence you would not learn to rise above your triggers, irritability, and anger, in order to bake within you the qualities of patience, mercy, and unconditional love in your hearts. Since you pay me to learn about these qualities, I hire him to give you the opportunity to practice these qualities.”

*This story has been attributed to G.I. Gurdjieff

Subscribe now

A Spiritual Reflection on the Story:

This story is not about being passive in the face of bad character, but about first being self-reflective. We neither have control over the actions of others, nor will we be asked about their behavior. Our responsibility, what Allah will ask us about, is how we respond to what He placed before us.

“And We made some of you a trial for others: will you be patient?”
—Qur’an 25:20

The trials that we face, be it a person or a circumstance, beckons us to reach deep inside of our souls and to emerge with pearls of refined virtues. The response to facing a trial is not shunning others, judgement, or hatred but rather as Allah asks, will you be patient? In other words, can you be patient enough to see beyond the outer form of the the difficulty to its inner wisdom, the kernel of mercy hidden deep inside?

“Verily, with difficulty comes ease. Surely with ˹that˺ difficulty comes ˹more˺ ease.
—Qur’an 94:5-6

The old man in this story is not an accident in the system, but he is highlighting the lower ego that lives in all of us. The Prophet ﷺ teaches us that believers are really meant to be mirrors for one another. In other words, you reflect back the blindspots in me to me and I do the same for you. It can be said that what I tend to hate in you, is often what I avoid to witness in me. So the trigger is the gift because it helps us to learn restraint in the face of anger and to transform our judgements into mercy. As we learn to constrict our lower ego’s tendencies it has a way of expanding our hearts. Not to mention, the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ reminds us that the difficulties we face also has a way of purifying us.

“No fatigue, illness, anxiety, sorrow, harm, or distress befalls a Muslim, even a thorn that pricks him, except that Allah expiates some of his sins because of it.”
—Prophet Muhammad ﷺ (Sahih al-Bukhari)

My prayer is that Allah helps us be patient in the face of the trials He sends us and through the patience He gives, that He also purifies us. I pray that He inspires mercy within us and that He makes us kind and gentle with one another. Oh Allah, we ask that You infuse us with Your grace so that we may be gracious with ourselves and others. In Your beautiful names we pray, Ameen

In prayers of light upon light,