That earthly life has its burden of suffering is obvious. The difference exists in theories about the cause of suffering. The wise say its root cause is ignorance. What is meant by this term is that we do not know who we are or why we are here? We do not know the play of forces and the way to master them? Let us apply this on the person in question. Well if one lived consciously one would have adopted a lifestyle that is not conducive to illness. One would also be conscious that death is only of the body, a knowledge that takes away much of the sting of death, its fear and the psychological suffering associated with this wrong conception. Yes physical suffering would still be there because of the imperfection of matter that though modified through evolution to support mental life, does not yet open to and express the spiritual life. If human beings were less afraid of death, if they knew how to embrace death and change with faith in the hope that some miracle will be done, or desperately clung to life attached to people and things around then suffering would probably be much less prolonged. The problem is that we want everything and at our own terms. Life should be perfect, free of suffering and pain but from my side I will make no effort at a healthier life style, practicing ways and means to free ourself from ignorance, discover the soul within us, shift our attitudes towards life and death but want God and destiny to favour us in everyway. Well it doesn’t work like that.
As to some people who have everything and never experienced pain and suffering, it would be truly a rarest wonder to see such a person. True everybody doesn’t have cancer or suffer physically, the degree may also differ, at least in the small frame of one life. But that is because we hardly see or know anyone except very briefly and on the surface. If only our consciousness could expand into the cosmic consciousness we would perhaps know the falsity of our impatient surface judgments and understand the way the Divine Wisdom and Grace works and recognise it more often. But here again we hastily judge events as good and bad based on the surface experiences of life in one body.
One must grow wide and rise high above the immediate experience of the senses, one must give deep below the surface events, then one grows calm and begins to know. An animal remains tied to the immediate surface events and their impacts, responding with instinct rather than conscious thought. But man has been given buddhi, our dharma is to use it and try to understand the deeper truth behind things (as you do when you ask questions). But most are content in their littleness until the shock of pain awakens them. If you try to prematurely cut this pain, through euthanasia for example, then you are only postponing the needed lesson of growth for another time, or another life. That is why when pain comes, instead of trying to run away from it, instead of cursing karma or God or someone, we should try to learn its message and taking it as a purifying ordeal, grow wiser, stronger and humbler. That after all is the main justification of pain as Sri Aurobindo reveals.
‘Pain is the hammer of the Gods to break
A dead resistance in the mortal’s heart,
His slow inertia as of living stone.
If the heart were not forced to want and weep,
His soul would have lain down content, at ease,
And never thought to exceed the human start
And never learned to climb towards the Sun….
His will must be worked out in human breasts
Against the Evil that rises from the gulfs,
Against the world’s Ignorance and its obstinate strength,
Against the stumblings of man’s pervert will,
Against the deep folly of his human mind,
Against the blind reluctance of his heart.
The spirit is doomed to pain till man is free.
There is a clamour of battle, a tramp, a march:
A cry arises like a moaning sea,
A desperate laughter under the blows of death,
A doom of blood and sweat and toil and tears.
Men die that man may live and God be born.
An awful Silence watches tragic Time.
Pain is the hand of Nature sculpturing men
To greatness: an inspired labour chisels
With heavenly cruelty an unwilling mould.
Implacable in the passion of their will,
Lifting the hammers of titanic toil
The demiurges of the universe work;
They shape with giant strokes their own; their sons
Are marked with their enormous stamp of fire.
Although the shaping god’s tremendous touch
Is torture unbearable to mortal nerves,
The fiery spirit grows in strength within
And feels a joy in every titan pang.’
Hope this helps
Affectionately,Ā
Alok da
