We stand at crossroads every day, unsure of which way to turn. Some roads tempt us with promise, others warn us with uncertainty. We worry—what if I choose the wrong one? What if the path I take is filled with sorrow, and another would have led me to joy? Yet the truth whispered by the sages and written in the stars, since eternity, is this: Whichever road you walk, it shall bless you with radiance and temper you with trials, for such is the law that makes every path divine. And, ultimately, all of it will be blissful.
The Bhagavad Gita teaches us:
“Sukha-duḥkhe same kṛtvā lābhālābhau jayājayau,
tato yuddhāya yujyasva naivaṁ pāpam avāpsyasi.”
Treat pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat alike,
and then you are ready for the battle of life.
This is not only Arjuna’s lesson but humanity’s truth. The path you choose will grant you victories that taste like nectar, and losses that burn like fire. Both are part of the same design.
The science of Vedic astrology reveals the same paradox. No birth chart is purely auspicious or purely malefic. Jupiter blesses with wisdom, but Saturn demands endurance. Venus enchants with love, but Rahu tests with illusion. The Moon brings feelings, but also vulnerability. The planetary dance ensures that every choice in life unfolds as a blend of joy and trial. If you pursue power, you will also carry responsibility. If you are after wealth, you will also have insecurity. If you renounce, you will also wrestle with solitude. If you seek love, you will taste both sweetness and ache. There is no path exempt from the duality of existence.
I remember reading the Ramayana years ago and reflecting over a similar thought. When Rama was exiled to the forest, it was unbearably painful to leave his family and kingdom. Yet it was also magnificently glorious, for that very exile became the canvas for his triumph over Ravana and his embodiment of dharma. The unbearable and the glorious were not separate—they were two faces of the same destiny. So, too, are the journeys of our own lives: entwined with sorrow and exaltation, darkness and light.
So many of my clients, and even my students sometimes, ask me,
“Which path will give me happiness? Which will spare me sorrow? ”
My answer never changes: “every path will give you happiness, and every path will bring you sorrow. To seek a path without trials is to seek rain without water or fire without heat. Life was never designed as an escape from pain—it was designed as a discovery of meaning. The unbearable refines us, the glorious uplifts us, and together they awaken us to the soul’s true purpose.”
The deeper secret is this: when the heart awakens, even the arduous reveals itself as radiant. Sorrow becomes the teacher that sharpens wisdom, loss becomes the silence where devotion flowers, and obstacles become the very gateways to strength. This reminds me of the quote I read by the modern stoic philosopher, Ryan Holiday, in his book – The obstacle is the way, reminds us ‘Blessings and burdens are not mutually exclusive.’ In this light, every road you take—no matter how winding, no matter how steep—is guiding you toward the same truth: the eternal Self, unshaken and blissful.
So walk your road with courage. Let the trials come, let the victories dazzle, but do not mistake them as opposites. They are the twin rivers carrying you to the same ocean. And when you reach that ocean, you will smile at the paradox, for you will see clearly—every road you could have taken was always blissful.
