If ‘struggle’ means ‘movement,’ then there, on that [spiritual] plane, where movement is so sweet, struggle is a high thing. But if we think that struggle means something painful, then that struggle must be of the lower plane. Here it is pain-producing; all movement, all endeavor here produces only pain. On the higher plane, there is also movement, but that movement produces sweetness, just as sandalwood when rubbed produces a sweet scent. There is struggle for the purpose of producing sweetness.
That struggle is producing sweet nectar
So there on the highest level they are also very busily struggling, but that struggle is producing nectar, which they are tasting. To struggle also means to be busy; everyone there is so busy, more than we can ever conceive. They are so active, but their activity is not painful; it produces peace. Here, trying to do away with our unholy attraction to the mundane, we experience a painful struggle. But, as the English poet Shelley wrote: “Our sweetest songs tell of saddest thought.” That kind of struggle also gives us peace. When a beginner in devotion starts to become detached from his mundane environment, to leave it is painful, but he also gets a kind of peace:
yad anucharita-lila-karna-piyusa-viprut
sakrid adana-vidhuta-dvandva-dharma vinastah
sapadi griha-kutumbam dinam utsrijya dina
bahava iha vihanga bhiksu-charyam charanti
(Srimad Bhagavatam: 10.47.18)
A devotee leaves his family, and his family is crying and wailing; he also feels pain because of their anguish. But still he feels a kind of peace of a higher quality, so he can bear the apparent pain of separation from his family life. When he is giving up his home and his family, he feels some painful reaction, but beyond that, in his heart of hearts, he feels some bright prospect. When a man goes to a foreign country to earn some money, he leaves his family and so he feels some pain, but at heart he also realizes that he is going to bring in money which will satisfy him, and enable him to enjoy.
Our sweetest songs are those which tell of saddest thought
In a similar way, when a person goes to leave this world, his association with misconception, apparently, or outwardly, he feels pain on account of what he is doing, but at heart he gets some hope of a bright future, and with that strength he can go on. So, when we have some attraction for this mischievous world, and we try to leave it, at that stage we struggle—a painful struggle. But still, beyond that we see a bright hope of some unparalleled nectarean taste of life.
Srila Krishnadas Kaviraj Goswami
So struggle does not always mean pain. Up to a certain stage it is painful, and that is due to maya, misconception. And we find also the symptoms of pain in Krishna-lila, but that is not really pain. It is apparent pain; it only seems so. Krishna said that He would come to a particular kunja (forest bower) and Radharani with Her party went there, but He did not come. That is called kalahantarita, mistiming, that is, being let down by the lover or beloved; and there are so many other situations, like mana (jealousy), etc. All these things are painful, but as Krishnadas Kaviraj Goswami writes, describing Krishna-prema: bahye visa-jvala haya, bhitare ananda-maya, externally there appears to be great pain, but the heart is overflowing with blissfulness. So, “Our sweetest songs are those which tell of saddest thought.” Externally it is sad, but internally, it is sweet. It is like that.
When we acquire ruci the taste will be sweet
When we take the Name, in the beginning we think it our duty to count so many rounds, and sometimes it is painful. But when we get a taste for the Name, then our inner tendency incites us to take the Name more and more—not that as a duty we will somehow have to finish sixteen rounds. But when we acquire ruci, inner taste for that particular service, it is happy. Until and unless we acquire that position, there must be some pain.
As long as we do not have that taste and we are doing that service as a duty, we will feel some pain. So sadhana-dasha is a little painful, on the whole. Then in apana-dasha it becomes sweet. Underground, of course, sweetness is everywhere; otherwise why should a person be tempted to approach the spiritual path? Only for the hope of sweetness. But still, if we want to see by analysis, then the process is: shravanadasha, hearing; then varana-dasha, accepting; then sadhana-dasha, practicing. Up to this point it is a little painful. Then apana-dasha, realized devotion; and finally prapanna-dasha, full self-surrender. And what pain exists is only apparent; substantially it is all sweet.
–An excerpt from the chapter entitled “The Sweetest Struggle” in Heart and Halo (84-87) by Srila Sridhar Maharaj.