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Letter #33 - Suffering is the Way
.There is an arresting exchange between Sri Ramana Maharshi and Yogananda Paramhamsa when he visited the ashram in 1935.
.“Later the Yogi asked: How is the spiritual uplift of the people to be effected? What are the instructions to be given them?
.M.: They differ according to the temperaments of the individuals and according to the spiritual ripeness of their minds. There cannot be any instruction en masse.
.D.: Why does God permit suffering in the world? Should He not with His omnipotence do away with it at one stroke and ordain the universal realisation of God?
.M.: Suffering is the way for Realisation of God.
.D.: Should He not ordain differently?
.M.: It is the way.
D.: Are Yoga, religion, etc., antidotes to suffering?
.M.: They help you to overcome suffering.
.D.: Why should there be suffering?
.M.: Who suffers? What is suffering?
.No answer! Finally, the Yogi rose up, prayed for Sri Bhagavan's blessings for his own work and expressed great regret for his hasty return. He looked very sincere and devoted and even emotional.”1
.What are we to make of this emphatic declaration by Sri Ramana? The implications of this dialogue are profound. Normally we all prefer pleasure to pain, happiness to suffering.
.Happiness is endless in its variety according to an individual's proclivities. What then is the principal characteristic of happiness? It is contentment. The cessation of restless desire albeit momentarily. Excitement is often mistaken for happiness but if one reflects upon it sufficiently, excitement is an artificial stimulant, a pleasure rather than a sense of well-being. We have all tried various approaches and if you are someone reading this Letter it is because no satisfactory solution has occurred. What we all are looking for is a permanent condition of happiness independent of external stimulants. We do not wish to be held hostage to external events for the peace of our body, mind and heart.
.And suffering? It is discord. It is static. It is an imbalance that stimulates the whole body-mind complex to revolt. We do not want it; we do not desire it yet it hangs in the air like a smog smothering us. We encounter a vicious circle of repetition because we cannot locate an exit to this distress.
. How did it happen in the first place? We can say, according to Hindu and Buddhist doctrine, it is a combination of prarabdha karma or preordained destiny due to our previous incarnations in this world. But for those who refuse to believe this and that we have but one life, this is anathema. They consider this a facile answer. Let us for argument's sake agree and then say, how to make sense of our suffering?
. One answer can be a combination of genes, the family situation into which one is born with its social and financial abilities, the society which subtly and otherwise forces one to make certain decisions to survive, one's own unique, idiosyncratic makeup, which can or cannot fit itself into the norms of the racial and cultural environment. We resort to adjustment if we are to survive and prosper. And this requires compromise. Again, another grey area where our sense of right and wrong are tested by circumstance that can cause us to take an easy way out that may result in spasms of guilt. The spectrum is endless. We all without exemption are caught up in the wheel of action and reaction.
.A common factor that colours suffering is the sense of impotence. That one cannot escape the endless cycle. Who has not experienced this when using a computer and being frustrated by the impersonal, cold logic of a machine that defies one's intentions not deliberately but by implacable rationality which defies one's limited abilities to comprehend the next step in the process? It is maddening. In our personal relationships we observe the same principle of complex forces which we cannot reconcile.
. If this is the pattern of our external lives, can we not locate a resolution in ourselves that liberates us from the clutches of circumstances? It is here that the teachings of Sri Ramana are helpful, if not liberating depending on the depth of our sincerity and desire to be free of impacts beyond our control.
. Once we step onto the spiritual path of liberation from the cycle of life and death, suffering is no longer an enemy to be vanquished but a tool to be employed to release us from the chains of our own apparent making. Instead of suffering being an obstacle, it becomes an opportunity.
. Sri Ramana did not indulge in fatuous philosophising. He was immensely practical and if he says that “Suffering is the way for Realisation of God” then we should take him at his word. What he indicates by this pronouncement is that suffering is meaningful. That is, instead of mindless, chaotic, sporadic suffering that appears out of nowhere, there is meaning in the suffering we endure. Modern life in the West and now slowly infecting the East, is the phenomenon that many people grievously suffer from a lack of meaning. We need not go into the reason why but simply register the fact.
. While meditating in the Old Hall at Sri Ramana Ashram, instead of bleating helplessly “why me?” when a particularly strong spasm of suffering occurred either physically, emotionally or mentally, there was a gradual shift of attention not to blocking the negative sensations but acceptance and an attempt feeble at first, to trace my involvement as the cause. It did not matter if my involvement was peripheral or central, my participation in suffering revealed a connection and I began to earnestly try to find out why, no matter how trivial the event. Slowly came the realisation that if I was to be free of the suffering, there was a surrender and acceptance of my responsibility. The endless reasons why it was either not my fault and pure chance would begin to sound hollow.
. Surprisingly instead of resisting there was born an acceptance, slowly, painfully. Like an athlete who is out of condition, my mind and heart took a long time to recover from my avoidance of responsibility. But when they did, there was a significant shift of attention and a natural release from the pangs of both guilt and remorse. There was a new lightness of step but just as importantly that which caused the specific grief never returned. The vitality expended on covering up the suffering was permanently transformed from a negative to a positive energy.
. Many years ago, while inside the great temple of Arunachaleswara one evening when it as still possible to wander unhindered, I was walking around the prakaram, the circumambulatory corridor around the principal shrine, when I stood before the vigrahams of Lord Arunachaleswara and his consort Sri Apitakuchambaal, that is, the specially made bronze consecrated statues of the gods which are taken outside in procession on festive occasions. A voice clearly said, “The curse has been lifted from you.” I explained in surprise, “What curse?” I looked around befuddled. Was it my imagination that saw and registered a smile on the lips of Lord Arunachaleswara? To this day I do not know for certain but what I do know is that there are realms of reality of which we have little or no inkling. Anyone who looks at the clear night sky sees millions upon millions of stars and we are but a miniscule player in the grand scheme. We are all part of a greater reality beyond our present comprehension. Albert Einstein stated in his long running dispute with Niels Bohr about the principle of uncertainty, “God does not play dice with the universe.” 2
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1. Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, Talk 107. 29th November, 1935.
2. In a letter Einstein wrote in 1954, he wrote: “I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.” .
