Every storm that has come into your life has widened your horizon, making you deep and more powerful.

All around the world, countries have stormy seasons. The tropical countries have their monsoons, and non-tropical countries have their yearly winter storms. The layout of the planet, along with its various climates and weather systems, make it such that there is always a storm happening somewhere on Earth. The same phenomenon holds true for people. Life is found to be caught up in storms very often, either in some part of the mind or body. You are not yourself when you are in even a small storm. By their very nature, storms take you away from your centre, and you don’t know what to do. All your practices, concepts, ideas, and ideals fall apart during storms.

Your devotion, your love, all the beautiful things you cherish in your life simply seem to be missing, or meaningless. These things happen when you are under the influence of a big storm. And even when the storm has subsided, the very memory of it disturbs you even more. So what do you do when a storm appears overhead? Nothing appears to be helpful. When you sit and close your eyes to meditate, you see that the mind is all over the place. You feel as though you are in a burning furnace and you don’t know how to put out the flame. It’s like an oil well is burning inside you. The more effort you make to cool it down, put the fire out, the more the fire comes alive, and brings more restlessness and agitation.

Every storm that has come into your life has widened your horizon, making you deep and more powerful. Every storm has destroyed some smallness or obstacle in you. The storms that rise in you never stay in you forever.

Every storm is a blessing. It cuts you, it destroys you, and it finishes you off while you cry. If you are knowledgeable, you don’t cry, you will laugh. Even though the event is the same in either case, you now laugh at it because you know that it is insignificant in the face of your true infinite nature. This is the role of knowledge. In knowledge, you smile and laugh at all events, including the most difficult ones. You grow out of the event with the power of knowledge. Even a drowning person can hold onto a straw. It’s like holding onto a life jacket, the knowledge in the storms.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji