THE NATURE OF SUFFERING -- PART TWO

Many Forms of Suffering

 There are many forms of suffering. Some obviously involve pain, and when I talk of pain I am talking of physical, emotional and spiritual pain. Believe it or not, the easiest pain to bear of those three is physical pain. So what we are talking about is that eventually one learns not so much to overcome pain but to come to terms with it because one can see a meaning and a purpose in that pain. What is difficult to handle is when one experiences pain for no apparent purpose. If there is a purpose and a meaning for the pain, for example when in childbirth, then one comes to terms with that pain and can see it as an evolving process.

When you come to deal with emotional and spiritual pain that is something entirely different. Physical pain is something you can understand, but how do you come to terms with emotional pain, shall we say when your husband or your wife dies and you are left grieving at the loss. Then let us consider the next degree which is spiritual pain. Suppose that you were to die at an early age of a heart attack through abusing your physical body by wrong eating and wrong living and you left behind a wife and young children. From the higher planes of life you would then witness your family living in great difficulties and although you would want to help them you could do nothing about it. That would cause you spiritual pain. That sort of pain is very difficult to come to terms with, but it is something you will all have to face one day.

Basic Cause of Suffering

As individuals you are all going to suffer. The basic cause of all suffering is ignorance. There is no need to suffer, for where there is Light, where there is Truth, where the Love of your Creator is present, there can be no suffering. Suffering can exist only in Darkness (ignorance). It cannot exist in Light. So when you, as an individual, think that you are suffering, recognize that it is because you have not come to terms with yourself as an individual. You have not balanced yourself with the surroundings in which you live, you have not merged your soul, your spiritual wisdom and knowledge, with the physical evolutionary path that you have chosen.

Understanding Suffering

There is no need for suffering. With the understanding of suffering comes the removal of pain, both physical, emotional and spiritual. It is a hard lesson to comprehend, but it is true. If you think back in your life to when you have suffered you will discover that that suffering was born out of a seperation between yourself and your Creator. Suffering only occurs when you lose trust in Its Plan, in Its Perfection, in Its total Being within which you live, move and have your being. When you have fear you are not in touch with your Creator. When you have extreme emotion you are not in touch with your Creator. At such times you will suffer. It is in the harmonization of one´s being with the Universe of which you are all a part that there comes an end to suffering.

So as your progress through the years to come, as you face your lessons in life, some painful, some less painful, when you think that you are suffering, look at yourself. Look at that part of you which is suffering. Is it the soul or is it the ego, the personality self?? Even the Master Jesus upon the cross suffered. But what was the nature of his suffering? It was not for himself. It was for the World which he was soon to leave, the World which had apparently ignored his message and act of being.

He who was overshadowed by the Christ, who had come to lead the World into the Piscean Age, was about to be crucified and the suffering that he felt was the suffering of an evolved soul for a less evolved Earth. It came from his understanding of what the Earth would have to go through. He saw what was to come. That was the nature of his suffering. So when you as individuals suffer, think of that example. Think not of yourselves but of the Earth, for when the Earth as a whole suffers then truly you will suffer as well.

This article is taken from "The Fantastic Teachings of Ramala".