I have a cat, which, when it was a few months old - and it was alone (I didn't have many cats then - it was just her), it wanted so badly to come inside my room, that it was pushing the door with all its strength, using it's head, it's body - everything it had as "leverage" to open the door. And it was managing it against all odds (the mass of the door far exceeding the little kitten).

And as I was looking at that kitten trying to open the door to come to me, tears got to my eyes (and even now that I remember that incident) because I realized at that moment, that the cat's will was so large to come inside and have my company, that the cat was "giving me" a spiritual lesson of determination that day. That small kitten was a spiritual master of determination and giving me a spiritual lesson in what it means to be determined.

Some times when I closed the door a bit more - and the space it had was near non-existent to try it, it tried even harder. And when seeing it struggling and crying, I was compelled to "reward" it by opening the door and letting it come inside and stay beside me - that was all it wanted anyway. And it was a moment when I got a second spiritual lesson: If I can be moved to "open the door" by the cat that strives to be with me with all its efforts, so would my higher self / god open the "door" to me, if I only had the same determination to reach inwards. I realized it's a universal law -at that instant- that if you make the sincere and strong effort to connect, no matter how hard the door seems to be in terms of opening it, it will be opened for you.

Damn, chills running up my spine as I write this.