Suffering

What is the cause of suffering?

There are two types of suffering: individual and universal.

Individual suffering is caused by ignorance of our one true Self and the resulting loss of goodness. Imagining ourselves to be separate and unsupported causes great fear, and makes the degeneration of our morality seem reasonable. Remembrance of our divine Self leads us to respond to life with trust and neutrality in all circumstances. As we grow in awareness, our hearts open and our lives improve.

Many mystics believe that there is no suffering outside of the unenlightened individual, since in God there must be total perfection. But, if suffering does not exist in All That Is (God), how could it be experienced at all?

There are four main explanations for this:

1) Evil is a test of a soul's worthiness for heaven;

2) Evil exists in order to evolve us;

3) Evil is a necessary polarity to goodness;

4) Evil is created out of curiosity.

It may also be that suffering was a condition within God caused by the primordial circumstances of existence. Consider that before creation, You, as God, existed in silent darkness, alone, without any experience except your own awareness. You could not sense anything outside yourself and there was no one else to teach You about yourself.

As a result, You experienced a deep sense of isolation as well as bewilderment about what You are, how You came to exist, and whether You could cease to exist. Your feelings of loneliness, confusion, and inability to change your condition were a cause of great suffering.

In your solitude, the idea occurred to You that through experiencing yourself Being, You could express your love and pain through creative self-expression. Thereby, You would know great joy and freedom, gain understand of yourself, and overcome suffering.

To do this, You learned how to surround yourself in sensual atmospheric conditions, then how to narrow and confine your consciousness into separate selves (cells, souls), while remaining fully self-aware. You gave each self a unique combination of your qualities, making them each perfectly suited for expressing your many ideas, in worlds of shared sense conditions and memories - both heavens and hells.

It became the purpose of each self to express You by being itself, to enhance Your existence by evolving itself. This is why unselfishly devoted spirit beings are so precious to You. They are joyous expressions of the blissful existence You are and the greatest proponents of what you intend for all beings throughout the universes.

"The original being, atman or self looks around and sees nothing else but himself. When he realizes his loneliness, he has two feelings, one of fear and the other of a desire for companionship. His fear is dispelled when he realizes that there is nothing else of which he has to be afraid. His desire for companionship is satisfied by his dividing himself into two parts which are called husband and wife."

-Brhad-aranyaka Upanisad