GONE IN THIRTY SECONDS: The Hand that Giveth, also Taketh Away Psalms 23:4 I recently gave a sermon on suffering. It was stirred by the events of January 12th. A powerful earthquake rocked It was not one of my best talks, now that I look at it in retrospect; I could have done much better; I was ill prepared and took barely half an hour to come up with the layout. There's nothing half as dangerous as standing before a crowd with a hurriedly crafted speech, so I decided to set it right and thus came this piece. Catastrophes and misfortunes like this shake our belief, or lack of thereof, in an all caring God to its core. It is hard to see God in the weavery of a Tsunami, or the starving to death of innocent children. Why does God allow such pain to be borne? Does suffering serve a purpose in our lives? Real suffering is not at all easy to bear. I say here real suffering, as I am not indicating here the endless trivial dissatisfactions of the ego, such as "Why don't I have 1 million blog readers?" or "Why can't I find my soul mate?", or "Why can't I lose my belly fat?" etc. I am speaking of the kind of suffering which makes one feel grateful that this physical manifestation is not eternal and makes one give suicide at least a serious thought or two. This is the kind of suffering which one cannot escape from with a few distracting thoughts or pleasurable activities. It is suffering, usually so intense, that it keeps you bound to the "now" and often, this kind of suffering provides the necessary pressure for realigning life. It makes us pose potent questions about life. "Why go on?", "why even bother?" "Is life even worth living?" And truly, if you have never asked yourself these questions, you are like an illiterate before the 'book of life'; you just can't read it. Wouldn't a perfect world suffice? Maybe it's imperative that we first try to conceptualize a world devoid of any suffering. What would a perfect life, a blissful world be like? Or is it just a fallacy? The simple answer is that endless pursuit of bliss is a criminal waste of that most valuable commodity — TIME. An earlier post in this blog – The Pretext – best explains this point. There's simply no point in a blissful world. It wouldn't be satisfactory, neither is it practical. Every so often life will hand us a bitter pill…. that's just how life is. To live means to suffer; human nature is not perfect and neither is the world we live in. Life in its totality is imperfect and incomplete, because our world is subject to impermanence. Just as happy moments pass by, we ourselves, all that we love and long for, and our loved ones will pass away one day too. Basically, that's WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE WORLD, and that's the source of all our troubles. The origin of all suffering is attachment to transient things and the ignorance thereof. Transient things; the physical objects that surround us, ideas, and -in a greater sense- all objects of our perception. Ignorance is the lack of understanding of how our mind is attached to impermanent things. The reasons for suffering are desire, passion, ardour, wanting to belong, pursuit of wealth and prestige, striving for fame and popularity, or in short: craving and clinging. Because the objects of our attachment are transient, their loss is inevitable, thus suffering will necessarily follow. Objects of attachment also include the idea of a "self" which is a delusion, because there is no abiding self. What we call "self" is just an imagined entity. So where does that leave us then? Since life never will be devoid of all forms of craving and clinging; there will always be something we want, then correspondingly suffering is inevitable. How then are we to handle it? If it is a part of us, just like living is, how then do we learn to live with it? "Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us." Romans 5:3-5 (NIV) This is the art of Suffering: In a small village there lived an immensely happy boy. He was full of the energy of life. His contagious smile made the whole village a happy place and all the villagers loved spending time with this uplifting spirit. But the old seer had predicted terrible suffering for the boy. Many years passed and he grew up to be a wonderful, deeply spiritual young man. Finally the time, as per the Seer, grew closer for the onset of the suffering and the boy's mother prayed hard for mercy and salvation for her son. Her prayers seemed to be answered by the arrival of a holy man who was called The Saint of Suffering. He possessed the power to relieve people of their suffering The Saint looked upon the boy with infinitely compassionate eyes, and sighed deeply as he saw the great suffering that the young man was to endure. "Lord, I have heard you are able to relieve people of their suffering?" "Yes," the Saint replied. "So this means you know a secret technique to do that?" "Yes, I do," affirmed the Saint. Then he made a request which the Saint had not heard to this day. He said, "Great Saint, please teach me this technique, so that I can take on your suffering and that of others, and relieve you your entire burden." The great Saint smiled sweetly and bowed deeply to him. It was always nice to meet another Saint. To be really happy doesn't mean wishing away suffering or the absence of it entirely. I am not advocating trying to be a Saint and equalizing the debt of others. That type of sacrifice is not for most of us. I am suggesting though; see if you can manage to carry your load. I know it can be very difficult, but life is not for the weak at heart. In agreeing to carry your load, you will be able to end the endless, futile cycle of escaping. You will embrace the moment regardless of the pain it may bring. In being willing in this way, you won't be so afraid of what the future might bring, as you will be open to the flow of life. Perhaps, suffering is really only there when we are trying desperately to resist it? I do want to point out here, that I am not suggesting we don't do what is necessary to heal ourselves or work towards relieving painful conditions, what I am indicating is that we don't let suffering disturb our inner composure and peace. In other words, suffering comes, that's ok, suffering goes, that's ok. Quit the whining! True gurus and highly successful people aren't complainers. Do you know any truly happy and successful person who just keeps on complaining? They realize that life is not perfect and there really is nothing they can do about it. Life is like a horse; every now and then it will throw you off. True awakening has a lot to do with this ability to say, "That's Ok," no matter what the situation, and that is truly the Art of Suffering. To stare it in the face, smile and say "That's Ok, No problem, Hakuna Matata." As matter of fact, even when life does seem comfortable, we should make conscious effort to disallow ourselves some of the objects of our desires and cravings. That is the gist of frugality, fasting and selflessness; practices that span across the religious divide. Take the plunge; choose for just a day not to indulge thyself. Have your coffee without its sugar, forego that 'must have' cup of tea at the office, deny yourself the comfort of lunch today…. I dare you today, to imbibe of the cup of selflessness, and find out how gratifying it really can be. Make an actual sacrifice; give up something you could do without. But then, of what purpose is suffering? "The good Lord made us all out of iron. Then he turns up the heat to forge some of us into steel; for it's through heat that iron is turned into steel, and gold is molded into a jewel" TRUE – we should expect, and when it does come, then accept. But why did God make it so… why the suffering? Let me tell you a story. In a land far away a beautiful princess was about to get married to her dream man. She had been told he was the perfect man. Full of love, compassion, strength and intelligence – and of course handsome as hell. She was so happy. The wedding day came and went, the whole kingdom celebrated and all was well. The morning after an equally wonderful wedding night, the princess brought her new husband tea and biscuits in bed. He smiled, ate, drank, told her how deeply he loved her and then slapped her flush across the cheek. They had not lied, he was strong and the princess was knocked to the floor by the force of the blow. She was dazed, in pain but mostly just in shock. What was more surprising was the shock on the husband's face. He was even more bewildered. The husband convinced the princess that he was just as taken aback by what happened and was genuinely sorry. His kind eyes and sincere tone clearly indicated to her that he was telling the truth so she forgave him and they moved on. Some years passed and soon both forgot the ugly event, until one day just as suddenly it happened again…. Whack! Then, soon after it reared its ugly head again…. Whack! Now it was too much for both to take and so they decided to seek counsel. Being royalty, all the best medics were summoned and consulted. Various theories were postulated and several cures were tried. Calming oils, exotic herbs, exorcisms, but every so often… Whack! It would happen again. Desperate, they finally went to see a mysterious sage who lived high up in the mountains. At the end of the narration he asked to see the husband's hands and closely inspected his palms. Once done with the husband he surprisingly asked to see the princess's hand and carefully began to check her pulse. Finally he looked up smiling and said, "I will tell you what is happening here, but in exchange you must not refuse me what I ask." "Well, my dearies", said the sage still smiling and looking at the husband said, "You sir are a great, healer. Your hands contain great power and you my dear princess have a terrible disease that keeps re-occurring every so often. By slapping you he has been curing you of this affliction time and again. If it had not been for those slaps, you would have long perished by now." Overwhelmed by what they heard they fell to the feet of the sage and tearfully thanked him. As for the payment, well the husband wound up and laid one directly on the sage…. Whack! What is the point of this story?  1 Peter 1:6-7 (NIV) Life inevitably produces pain for you so that you may awaken to what needs to be worked on within yourself. In the case of the princess she was lucky as the pain was benefiting her without her knowledge, but in most of our cases we need to utilize the suffering to inspect closely the diseases of our attachments. The pain, upset, discomfort borne in the course of our lives helps to reveal the attachments we have and the inner working of our minds. It could be as simple as feeling bad for not being complimented on a new dress or as complex as getting upset with your partner for giving away too much to charity. The attachments could be to security, money, sex, power, prestige, name, fame, religion, children, family, country, comfort, food, etc. It does not matter; life will poignantly reveal them to us. As long as we have these attachments, and they are strong within us, we live in fear and misery; afraid of not getting that which we want, afraid of loosing it if we have it and fearful of those on whom we depend on for their fulfillment. That is why measuring the richness of our lives by the level of our attachments really is quite silly. We need to change our attitude towards pain; see it for what it really is; an opportunity for insight and internal growth. The way of insight is through delicate observation and acceptance. This is the only approach that will root out and weaken attachment. Any other reaction on your part to suppress the feeling, or run away from it, or replace it with good feelings, or psychoanalyze it, etc, will simply leave the underlying causes intact only to have the outburst happen again when the time is ripe. Remember Why we have to keep on Questioning: Share 
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