The Ugly side of Perseverance

Stubbornness is the ugly side of perseverance. Those who exhibit the stubbornness behaviour fail to recognise this trait in them and cling to the notion that they’re passionate, decisive, full of conviction, and able to stand their ground, seemingly as admirable leadership’s characteristics but never a weakness.

Being stubborn isn’t always a bad thing. But if you’re standing your ground for the wrong reasons, are you really doing the right thing? To treat oneself the best is to increase the awareness of the likely symptoms and then work to contain its progress growing within you. A very visibly behaviour is to feel anger, frustration, and impatience when others try to persuade you of something you don’t agree with. Another common behaviour with many is when others present an idea, one tends to point out all the reasons it won’t work. Most irritable to others is when one keeps at an idea or plan, or insist on making a point, knowingly you are wrong. Often knowing one is going to do something entirely different, but still will agree to or commit half-heartedly to others’ requests. Avoiding information that contradicts your beliefs.

To qualify being a stubborn should be hurting as it not only makes us do things we shouldn’t do but also cuts us off from others, simply because we insist on our own way and won’t admit we might be wrong. Those wanting to help are shunned too. The hurt is more concerning when our stubbornness cuts us off from God, because it makes us refuse to seek His Will or listen to His Word. Instead, we insist on going our own way— regardless of the consequences. The stubborn minded who go about their business are disgraced forever and will never find inner peace as they do not embrace love for the True lord. No wonder we have heard in some discourses “through 8.4 million incarnations, people wander lost; in stubborn-mindedness, they come and go”.

Gurbani says Stubborn-mindedness will not win the Lord to one's side, no matter how much it is tried. The Lord is won over to your side, by offering Him your true love and contemplating the word of the Shabad. No wonder the stubborn-minded intellect drowns, as they are unable to be on the boat that ferries them across.

One who die fighting against their own stubborn mind finds God and the desires of the mind are quietened. SGGS 353

The quietened mind surely will bring the changes in you to experience what Gurbani says

“My stubbornness is gone, Ambrosial Nectar rains down, and the Word of the Guru's Shabad seems so sweet to me. He is pervading everywhere, in the water, on the land and in the sky; Nanak beholds the all-pervading Lord".

- SGGS 671