Making Sense of Suffering

 

After many births the wise seek refuge in me.

-    Bhagavad Gita

 

In order to understand the suffering in this world we have to go beyond it.  We have to see beyond the limitations of bodily existence and come to know ourselves on a deeper level.  On the level of form we have to accept that life is temporary and we are prone to pain, disappointment, grief and loss.  There seems to be no way of getting around it.  When we awaken to our true nature, however we see beyond the illusory limitations of temporal forms.  We recognize ourselves as beings of boundless consciousness, infinite light.  It is our attachment to impermanent objects that creates our suffering. 

“Our bodies and our minds,” writes Brian L. Weiss, MD, “are the masks our real self— the soul— wears in the physical world. When we die, we remove our masks and we rest in our natural state. There is no disappearance, no oblivion. We simply take off our masks, our clothes, and other outer coverings, and we return home to the spiritual realms.”  (Miracles Happen, 2012)  His words echo the teachings of Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, “As a man abandons worn-out clothes and acquires new ones, so when the body is worn out a new one is acquired by the Self, who lives within.”  This ancient knowledge although disregarded and despised in the modern age continues to resurface in dreams, meditation, past-life regression and psychedelic experiences.  As we collectively awaken from the dark age this knowledge is becoming more common place.  For example “According to data released last year by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, a quarter of Americans now believe in reincarnation.” (http://personalityspirituality.net/2010/09/05/western-belief-in-reincarnation-on-the-increase/)

Of course you might say belief is purely subjective and doesn’t prove anything.  However, many people report having meaningful past-life memories.  These memories can have a healing effect on both physical and psychological levels, as Dr. Weiss points out. 

Reincarnation enables us to make sense of life, to put suffering into perspective.  Instead of seeing our lives as meaningless, chance events, this spiritual perspective allows us to understand them as stages in the evolution of our souls.  A religious perspective that excludes reincarnation doesn’t give us room to grow.  As “The Healer,” a character in Bill Douglas’s novel “2012 the Awakening” says, “The denial of reincarnation is anti-evolutionary. The essence of evolution, which is required of us now more than at any other time in our history, is fluidity of spirit.  The rejection of reincarnation rigidifies people, causing them to grit their teeth and resist who they really are, in order to follow dogmatic and arbitrary rules so they can avoid eternal damnation when they die. They stop evolving and live in obedient fear of a wrathful, vengeful God – who will either give them a not guilty sentence for their self-denial, or will damn them to eternal suffering for stepping outside the rigid lines.”  Reincarnation gives us an opportunity to learn from our mistakes.

The concept of karma goes along with reincarnation.  It simply implies that there are antecedents to our current life experiences.  We come into this life with certain tendencies, abilities, needs and desires.  We come to learn from this experience.  Karma is both personal and collective.  Sometimes it seems to represent a callous attitude towards other – after all it seems to imply that we all get what we deserve.  Instead we might better understand this world of our experience as a collective creation.  It is an opportunity to develop love, compassion and generosity, and to evolve beyond the narrow limits of our self-serving ego consciousness.  Perhaps the innocent child who is killed so tragically is actually an aspect of God telling us to wake up.  Marianne Williamson writes, “Starving children in Africa are not poor because their consciousness is unaligned with love; they’re poor because ours is. A billion people on earth live in “deep poverty”— that is, on less than a dollar and twenty-five cents a day. A billion more live on less than two dollars a day. Yet this is not an “exception” to the rule that love casts out fear. Quite the opposite, it is a collective lovelessness on the part of the advanced nations of the world that allows us to accept the reality of deep poverty, thus deflecting a miraculous solution.” (Williamson, Marianne (2012-11-27). The Law of Divine Compensation: On Work, Money, and Miracles . HarperOne. Kindle Edition.)

Beyond belief in reincarnation or even past-life memories however is our real task of awakening to our true nature as beings of consciousness.  We are responsible for the reality we create out of self-centered desire, hatred, fear, greed, etc.  We are here to overcome these and to awaken to the Loving Presence of Who We Are.  We must awaken beyond the dream, beyond the nightmare, beyond ego.  Ultimately we are here to awaken from all attachment to outward form and to recognize our inner unity and perfection. 

Meditation is the time proven method for spiritual evolution.  Research indicates that if meditation became the central activity of humanity then violence would be eliminated.  Is this possible?  It starts with each of us.  Practice meditation regularly,” taught Swami Sivananda. “Meditation leads to eternal bliss. Therefore meditate, meditate.” 

OM