Tribulations Obstacles and Sufferings are God’s blessed grace which enable to attain Divine Grace

Arunachala

(from "Living by the Words of Bhagavan"):

Question: How is it that so much suffering comes to people who behave virtuously?

Ramana Maharshi: It is good if suffering comes to devotees. The dhobi [washer man], when washing clothes, beats them hard against a rock. But he does so only to remove the dirt from the clothes. Similarly, all sufferings are given for the sole purpose of purifying the mind of the devotee. If we are patient, happiness will follow.

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(from "Guru Vachaka Kovai"):

 Many afflictions, like thunderbolts, heavily oppress excellent and virtuous devotees. You should know that this happens not to torment them but to firmly establish and make resilient [in tapas] the minds of those pure ones.

Without his excellent mind losing its composure, let the sadhaka endure to the very end the tribulations that come to him through prarabdha. He should understand that they [the tribulations] are God’s blessed grace which enables him to attain divine fortitude. They have as their ultimate purpose the bestowal of liberation on the mature soul.

An uncut gem excavated from a mine will not attain brilliance unless it is cut and polished. Similarly, the true tapas, the sadhana that a sadhaka performs, will not shine except by the ordeals which are the obstacles to it.

For the large, rolling temple chariot to run through the streets and return to its starting point safely, and in orderly way, not only is small but vital linchpin [that keeps the wheel attached to the axle] indispensable, it also needs the obstructing wedges that regulate its movement and prevent its wheels from getting out of control and crashing into the sides of the road. Similarly, in the life of a sadhaka, the obstacles that occur through the grace of God [are indispensable] for him to attain divine strength.

(David Godman explains):

The temple chariot of Tiruvannamalai c

The temple chariot of Tiruvannamalai completes a circuit of the four main streets that surround the Arunachaleswara Temple once a year during the Deepam festival. It is a four-wheeled wooden construction, about thirty feet high, which is maneuvered through the town by thousands of pilgrims who pull it with two long chains that are attached to the front. Until a few years ago there was no steering mechanism since neither the eight-feet-high wooden wheels nor the axles could be turned. In order to prevent the chariot from running into the crowds that line the road, and to negotiate the four corners that are on the route, wedges were occasionally placed under some of the wheels so that when the chains were pulled, the chariot turned on the spot instead of going forward. Since one of the streets on the route is downhill, the wedges are also used there to check the forward momentum of the chariot. Without them, the vehicle would pick up speed and crash into the buildings at the bottom of the slope.

Muruganar: When Bhagavan’s elder brother said [shortly before Bhagavan left Madurai for Tiruvannamalai], ‘What business is there here [in this house] for one who is practicing yoga?’ [kicking off Ramana] was this not the obstacle that transformed a sixteen-year-old schoolboy into the Bhagavan Ramana who is praised by the whole world?

There is no rule that only those obstacles created with good intent will prove to be beneficial. Through the merit of the tapas performed by the sadhaka, even an obstacle created through evil intent can prove beneficial. Also, occasionally, a well-intentioned obstacle can lead to a totally unexpected and unique benefit. Ramana’s life is a good example of this