Why Suffering?

Each moment stands still in Time Eternal,

but passes away so swiftly,

it is as if it never was.

Suffering makes us stronger but at a great cost. We lose part of our self when we lose another who is close to us or when we are in great pain from life's various negative circumstances. This part that is lost burns away a former identity or belief we once held and with it comes a kind of purification. The 'dross' is separated from the 'gold' but only through the raging fires of suffering does this process occur.

This trauma is not to be sought for; it will find us in due time. Life's lessons are given exactly as the curriculum demands, no more no less. But at the end of the viewpoint of the individual, it is a slow and painful process. The only comfort in these times is that "All is change" and nothing remains the same, although it may appear to be unchanging there is an ebb and a flow: a time of rapidity and a time of dullness. In these two times suffering can be long and drawn out, or quick and sharp like a knife cut to our being.

We hold on to that which never was, a story, yet real to all accounts in all forms of belief and is true in almost all cases -- except for the part of the individual which knows that it isn't real; that life as we know it is a lie and we alternately rage or cower in fear at the impossibility of this reality, this 'so called life.'

Suffering causes change (or more accurately is change) to the individual. Comfort and security and wanting everything to be the same are at odds with the fearless courage to set out on this grand adventure in hope of finding Reality. Change in your being at the core, is required to change the world. As above, so below; the internal man (or woman) changes and thus reciprocates a change in the outer. The outer changes and thus reciprocates a change in the inner. Outer and inner worlds are not set apart but innately linked as one reality, one world. Change in one affects the other and so each comes into alignment gradually or suddenly depending on the nature and power of the force of the change that occurs. Corrections are made for those worlds which are too far removed from the greater (whichever the greater happens to be at the time -- whether that means one imposing a will upon the masses or the masses imposing a will upon the one or in the more esoteric aspects).

Thus modes of acceptability and 'rightness' (cleverly masked as 'righteousness' sometimes) are forced upon the individual in the society he lives in and excluding those worlds deemed too far apart from the norm to coexist. We take these 'normal' (mass) viewpoints on as our own and wonder why we feel so bad or separate because we do not live true to ourselves.

The Truth wins out in all cases versus belief, even if belief is right. But belief is a cause of suffering if it is found to be erroneous. So searching for the correct erroneous belief may be a option but it is better still to simply tear down those beliefs which are known to be false, and put to the test those beliefs which are suspected at being incorrect.

"The dream is not your problem. Your problem is that you like one part of your dream and not another. Love all, or none of it, and stop complaining. When you have seen the dream as a dream, you have done all that needs be done." --Nisargadatta Maharaj

This tearing down process in the individual can only occur from the inside out and in it's own time with deliberate care. Forcing anything will lead to more devastation and not the proper growth needed to move along the individual on their life's path (whatever that may be). We need patience, forgiveness and open heartedness not to mention open headedness, a developed discernment and right judgement factor, operating at all times to permit ourselves to go beyond suffering as it is brought upon us, even in it's seeming reality.

May we all find that which is beyond suffering, and go there ourselves.

GATE GATE PARA GATE PARASAM GATE BODHI SVAHA!