{"id":4271,"date":"2023-09-07T12:42:06","date_gmt":"2023-09-07T19:42:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/richardmaddox.com\/?p=4271"},"modified":"2023-09-07T12:42:09","modified_gmt":"2023-09-07T19:42:09","slug":"the-value-of-struggle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/richardmaddox.com\/the-value-of-struggle\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;The Value of Struggle&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>&#8220;Wiser souls welcome the planetary squares and oppositions, which pose the confrontations productive of transcendence and true progress in life. Overcoming maya, the great trap laid for the soul by the ego, crossing the teratoid seas of samsara, the endlessly repetitive cycle of suffering, does not happen without an epic struggle that inevitably involves the endurance of pain. The saints can rightfully preach that enlightenment is there to be had all the time, that it is everyone\u2019s inherent birth right. Equally certain is the fact that ripe souls have so closely approached realization that their final step is easy and swift. But thousands of lifetimes preceded that last one which brought release. Even the life stories of great saints are filled with tales of strangling frustration so powerful that it brought them to the verge of suicide. Being so close to the Infinite, they simply could no longer stand to be denied union with It.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Wiser souls welcome the planetary squares and oppositions, which pose the confrontations productive of transcendence and true progress in life. Overcoming maya, the great trap laid for the soul by the ego, crossing the teratoid seas of samsara, the endlessly repetitive cycle of suffering, does not happen without an epic struggle that inevitably involves the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>&quot;The Value of Struggle&quot; | Richard Maddox<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/richardmaddox.com\/the-value-of-struggle\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"&quot;The Value of Struggle&quot; | Richard Maddox\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&#8220;Wiser souls welcome the planetary squares and oppositions, which pose the confrontations productive of transcendence and true progress in life. 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