"Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truth. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult, once we truly understand and accept it- then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters."
The Road Less travelled, an extraordinary book on life's meaning and spiritual growth, written by M.Scott Peck a military trained psychotherapist, writer and influential spiritual guide, is an outstanding read about life's journey and the rewards of travelling on the path of spiritual growth. The writer has beautifully divided the book in four sections i.e. Discipline, Love, Growth and religion, and Grace. All these sections interlinked and well explained about spiritual growth.
The first section of the book as stated in the first line, is about pain and suffering. Pain and suffering give a true meaning to the life. It explains about the courage to face problems solves most of the mental health issues. Furthermore, using his case studies, M.Scott Peck has beautifully explained the concept of delaying gratification i.e. scheduling and meeting the pain first to enhance the pleasure in life. The pain of giving up an old idea, a habit, giving up our oldself these all result in the birth of a new self, which explains the pleasure at the end of the pain. It focuses on self-discipline, self-examination, explains lying as an attempt of legitimate suffering and mental illness, withholding truth even worse than black-lying. This section covers a great deal about balance in lives, to have complete responsibility for ourselves, and being able to reject the responsibilities which are not truly ours to have, comes by complete balance or discipline in life. Discipline has been defined as the system developed to deal with pain of experiences constructively instead of getting away from them.
The second section of the book deals with the ultimate mystery of love. Where the author defines the journey of love as the journey of spirtual growth, explaining the misconceptions about love i.e. falling in love and romantic love not being genuine love, but just a honeymoon time for which the ego boundary of each individual collapse for sometime and after that time comes the part of extending limits, where most of the people fall out of love. True love is a form of courage as it requires extension of oneself, it implies commitment and exercise of wisdom, where the acceptance of our own and other's individuality is developed.
Third section of book covers the growth and religion, where the main idea of religion is formed. Using different case studies the author has done a wonderful job defining the role and true meaning of each religion for everyone. He explains that most basic part of our culture or religion comes from what we are being told by our families. And for developing a broader vision we must kill our narrow visions and question ourselves. As the path of holiness lies through questioning everything.
The last section covers Grace, a force, whose mechanics are not understandable and that operates in everyone's lives to protect and foster the mental health. Furthermore, it discusses the unconscious and its connection to God.
Finally, this book explains every aspect of life and spiritual growth in the light of different case studies, which would definitely enable the reader to start moving towards higher level of self understanding and growth.
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