Why do I suffer?
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Dear Magdi,
After the group Satsang today, I took a close look at what is suffering, and want to share it with you to get your help. I took one example, and there are so many in life. The example is: I want a situation to happen a certain way, for someone I care about. It is out of real compassion for them. A decision is pending in a few days. There are events where I am involved in facilitating that decision to happen. Whenever the thought around this situation arises, the expectation seems to get stronger. There is worry, anxiety. This is the suffering. And in time, if the situation is not favorable, the suffering is more. If it is favorable, there is so-called happiness. But the next situation and the expectation around it has already sprouted, as numerous seeds have been, and are being sowed.So, when I look closely at the above example-situation, :
A) There is an idea of a person – the one whom I want the decision to be favorable for.
B) There is the expectation about the future outcome, that it should end a certain way. Along with the expectation comes anxiety or fear, that it may not end the way I want it to end. I call this suffering.
C) There is a deep-ingrained ‘Me’ as an entity that has this expectation.
D) A sub-conscious defintion of ‘My happiness has been formed, that if the result matches my expectation I and Happy, else I suffer.
E) Thanks to Grace and guidance, there is the Viveka experientially, that A, B, C and D are all ideas, thoughts, and that the E, the real ‘I’ is perceiving all of them and therefore unaffected by any of this. Nothing can really affect me. But C seems to overpower E.So, the problems are A, B, C, D. To narrow it down, it all comes back to C – a separate Me. I’d say even expectation (B) is not an issue. This could be a genuine desire that arises outside of ‘Me’. As long as I don’t tie my happiness to the outcome. For which I have to see who I am CLEARLY.
Is this correct?
If so, do I keep going back to E, the direct evidence that the real ‘I’ is not a separate ‘Me’. Is it a matter of repeatedly seeing the illusion for what it is?
Thank you
Dear Ganesh,
It is a wonderful thing to act out of compassion and wanting to help. Can we do so without being attached to a result, simply doing our best? Suffering is a form of resistance and seeking. But when we are engaging out of compassion and love, can we explore doing so, being attentive about the engrained tendencies to resist and seek? As we are interested in love and truth, we develop a trust in/for the unknown, in spite of the tendency to get fixated on the mind.
There is no separate self. Separation arises with the habitual tendency to phenomenally identify ourselves. This identification is optional.
Our essential nature is free from identification and attachment.
Can we trust it?
Can we embark in activities out of compassion, intelligence, love and freedom without introducing personal conditions? It is a fascinating path to explore.Love,
MagdiYou ask: “Can you please expound on “Suffering is a form of resistance and seeking”. What is resisted, sought?”
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Resistance is fueled by a desire to protect something valuable. We value our ideas and our beliefs. We value our expectations about how others should behave, how the world should appear and unfold, how our body should feel. Given we do not have any personal control over the world, body mind, we are disappointed. Life disappoints us. This disappointment is the face of rejection, which is a form of resistance.
What is it we are resisting? Given there is nothing truly external to us, nothing external to consciousness, the impression of resistance is nothing else than consciousness playing the game of resisting its own creativity. It does so out of its own freedom.
It is important to understand that from the relative perspective, the entire process of attachment to beliefs, the disappointment as well as the mental engagement in resistance is an internal process. It is a form of self-flagellation which is unhappy and serves no real purpose aside from revealing that this sort of engagement is erroneous.
Seeking is the other side of the coin. Resisting ‘what is’ and wanting ‘what is not’ (something else) go hand in hand.
There is nothing real which is being resisted or sought. Reality is peace and knows no opposite.
The understanding about one reality, about the unopposed reality of consciousness, brings an end to this internal tug of war.
