1. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati on personal calamities

    You should perceive your former life and the impressions from it as conducive to performing bhajana. In other words, you should realize that the unfavorable conditions of your past are in fact a platform for the manifestation of favorable ones in the present. It is the very calamities that arise in unfavorable conditions that subsequently give birth to favorable conditions for bhajana.

    From Prabhupadera Patravali