Suffering It is often difficult to accept suffering and to manage it. We do not understand why we are suffering and why life is not living up to our expectations. We cannot find our ideal partner. We feel overlooked or unloved and we identify with this suffering and seek an external solution. It is normal to try to ease suffering and to want to understand its causes. It is pointless to endure suffering if it can be avoided. Suffering is part of our lives, but it is not inevitable or an inexorable fact. We must avoid letting ourselves be conditioned by the belief that suffering is a means of obtaining forgiveness for our “sins”. The belief that we must suffer to obtain some sort of redemption is wrong and does not bear any relation to the essence of life. Even if suffering can help us to develop our understanding of the world, it is not necessarily essential in order to achieve fulfilment and fulfilment is not measured in terms of the number of difficult ordeals we have experienced. This does not imply that we should not listen to the message offered by suffering. However we should never view it as inevitable. The notion of salutary suffering is a trap, a conditioned response created by the mind and reinforced by Christianity. What exist, exists. Within what exists - when we see what that is - suffering is seen as an anomalous element of the life for which we have been created. Suffering is viewed with compassion and love, but also as a distortion of our fundamental nature which is divine. There is a major difference between what we think we are experiencing and seeing and what actually exists. This does not mean that we should deny the hurts and sufferings which we endure. They are part of our history and its rich variety. However, we are under no obligation to endure them. Let us see them, accept them and offer them up. This is the first step towards a relationship with the Divine. On the one hand, suffering is part of life and must be accepted as such. Accepting what occurs is an essential response to suffering. Acceptance does not imply either fatalism or masochism. Acceptance does not mean that we have to allow ourselves to surrender to suffering. Far from it! Acceptance is an attitude stemming from an understanding of the game of life: this involves being sufficiently objective to understand that every ordeal, however painful, helps us to grow. Everything life shows us is a mirror. Each thing, each event contains its own logic and lesson. If we can understand how life works, then we can embrace and transcend periods of deep suffering, loneliness and sadness. Therefore we should accept what occurs, but we must be careful not to become fatalistic by subconsciously encouraging suffering because we think it is beneficial to our personal development! Seeing, appreciating and understanding does not mean enduring and succumbing to a feeling of guilt for past actions, or believing in the redemptive power of suffering. Moreover, understanding the origins of suffering or mental blocks is not a prerequisite for resolving them. The main thing is to be attentive to the present moment and not to let oneself be carried away by a wave of emotion or suffering, however strong it might be. A clear-sighted faith with its roots in the heart rather than mental reasoning can be helpful. It is crucial to let go of the idea of understanding what is happening in our daily lives. What we actually have to do is to take things as they come as a whole and embrace them on the basis of the greatness of the enlightened consciousness. Another key attitude when confronted with suffering is to assume the role of witness. It is critical to avoid identifying with our personal history and being caught up and swept along by it in a form of melancholy or fatalism. Most of us experience extremely difficult ordeals. The proper approach is to witness these situations, to discover the identity of the “I” who is suffering and to relocate it in its proper place. This involves placing some distance between the suffering and ourselves and looking at who is really acting and suffering, based on the Source. Viewing suffering from this perspective of a witness avoids identifying with it and with the situation which has created it. We must take every opportunity to develop our ability to act based on this realm of consciousness where we are merely simple witnesses. As witnesses, we can assess the situation fully and grasp all its ramifications. Suffering or a fear can actually be so intense that it overwhelms us even though we have seen and acknowledged it and we can find it genuinely difficult to free ourselves from it. In this case, the best attitude is probably to retreat into the silence of meditation. This will help us to adapt more easily to a difficult situation. By moving straight to silence, mental blocks will ease and the resistances which we experience will gradually diminish; living is an important spiritual experience. These circumstances involving suffering require a great deal of courage and compassion with regards to oneself and others. We must go back to our roots and dig deep in the very foundations of our existence. In this way, it is possible to simply eliminate forever emotional and mental suffering viewed from the perspective of the Source. In fact, to speak clearly and frankly: from the point of view of the Source and Silence, suffering does not exist, since life is seen in its transcendental reality. pchauvancy/self-awakening-transcendental-meditation-a-path-toward-science-of-being-and-art-of-living/
Posted on: Tue, 03 Dec 2013 09:49:34 +0000
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