Are you here because of the human suffering?
 

How many of you are here because of your own suffering and the suffering you see in the world? When I say "here", I am talking about going beyond the physical, you know, searching the spiritual things.

To be honest, I have always been called to the spiritual world but what made me to go deeper and deeper, is my own suffering and the suffering I see all around, this pushed me harder and harder to seek more.For this very reason I found myself searching the Creator, crying for an answer, again and again, all of this happening while having out of body experiences.

I began consciously searching for spiritual answers as a confused teenager in my first term at university in the UK. My search was motivated by suffering, my own suffering and the suffering I had seen around me. And growing up in Asia, I had seen plenty of suffering, particularly in Calcutta which in December 1971 was flooded with refugees from the war in what was then East Pakistan.

So I was at a party in Brighton on the south coast, having consumed a quantity of mushrooms and had a few spliffs when I became very inward looking. Suddenly I was struck with a clear knowing that I was searching for peace and love and happiness and I would never find these things in the external world because they were all within me, and I had to clean up my life, become vegetarian and begin meditating (even though I had no idea what meditation was). For me, this was a clear message from the Soul.

Two days later, back at university I came across a meditation group doing Shabd Yoga, and that has been my path and practice ever since.

Everything happens with perfect timing.

Peace.

I enjoyed your personal revelations.....

I definitely think suffering can be a powerful motivation to explore deeper within ourselves.

I can say I never had an out of body experience. I have seen suffering of others and had some hard experiences some could call suffering. Trust me I spent most of my life looking for answers. What I learned so far is the answers find you. Let the suffering teach you how to let the answer find you. Keep moving, don't let the suffering eat you. After all, your only human. If you see suffering you don't like, do something about it. Even if you do fail you learned a little something. Maybe even one piece of the puzzle to an answer your seeking. It's not a easy process but once the momentum starts it's hard to stop. But only you can start it.

I certainly got to the spiritual path through suffering but I honestly believe that there's only 2 things lead to spirituality either your mind has been opened or your heart/spirit has been broken.
People are a bit like racehorses, they all look good when they're getting things their own way out in front but you really need to see them trapped wide, without cover and a bit of weight on their back to see how good they really are.

Agreed!!!!

My "path" has been checkered. I don't want to waste people's time putting them through reading the backdrop to all this, just to say my pre-adolescent upbringing was not nice.

It wasn't that in itself that started me off but an early teenage fascination about things unlikely to be explained by science or reasoning: dreams, inspiration and the existence of wildly different religions of which only one could be right (so it seemed).

Keeping it short, this interest was picked up by an elderly family friend who suggested I look at Hermeticism. He gave up time to assist me. THAT really started it. Nothing was as it seemed to be. I was victim of both delusion and illusion and both were best shot of...that was the path. How to get rid of it.

Needing to know what was at my core and plain curiosity about what animated people generally, I encountered various Neo African and Japanese ideas through friends at college. I never took to the Hindu ideas because they seemed too inward and less about living life to the full but admit I barely studied them. The populist stuff going about was a bit dodgy.

I also spent some time with sorcery, a practical application of Hermeticism - have left that behind now but it did set my attitude that there's little point in a spiritual drive without it benefiting someone in practice.

More recently I realised that I'd probably set out at a much younger age, maybe 7 or 8, diverging from my parents' expectations, sometimes censure. At times it was in defiance but the only suffering was the frustration and upset that censure caused me, constricting my feelings and ideas. When the Children's Department got involved over physical cruelty it was like the doors of a prison opening!

it seems very common to have dealt with intense suffering or an out of body type of experience for people to search for and to find there spiritual nitch. My introduction to it was way different. For me maybe it was "just time". Like anyone I had troubles and continue to have them. But that's life. Take care of them one at a time. The problems we face are only physical. I see them as building blocks. Seeing problems in that gives you great strength. Strength to keep them building blocks..... Building and growing. You can do 1 of 2 things in life. Grow or die. There in no in-between. Least that's what I believe.

***

Unless we ourselves suffer how would we truly relate empathetically towards the suffering of others?

***

I am not here for any reason other than the simple fact that two people thought having kids would be fun.

Well said ! :smile:

What human suffering?

Everything and anything that makes us suffer and not only us, there are other living beings that suffer too.

Perhaps we can't, to be truthful.
It's the old story - if you've never had a toothache you cannot imagine or appreciate the pain of someone claiming to suffer one
.

Well i'm sure someone who never had a toothache can at least imagine what it would be like to endure one. Especially if others around them have endured one. I don't think a person needs to experience the same exact things to feel empathy towards others.

Agreed. My sense is that an empathic person can experience the suffering of another vicariously to a sufficient degree to understand the phenomenon.

Reluctantly, a few thoughts:

- I started to wonder why I am here, what I am meant to do here, at a stage of my life when I was experiencing the most success, and the least suffering

- Somebody's suffering may look as an unattainable desired situation to somebody else. Somebody's happy and purposeful life may seem a dread to somebody else.

- Each one of us creates our own reality, from our beliefs, thoughts, emotions. The more we perceive suffering, the more suffering we're exposed to.

- The nature of things determines what happens to / from those things: e.g. you can't stop smoking if you perceive yourself as a smoker who tries not to smoke. You have to perceive yourself as a non-smoker, and naturally you won't smoke (you have to change your nature).

Makes sense.

Some people are envious but if they had to walk in another person's shoes, they might think twice.

At this moment you are here to exprerience the most success and the least suffering. If it was 'meant to be' any other way it would be.

Exactly the point.

Simply, your reality is defined by your perceptions, your perceptions are defined by your beliefs and your beliefs are defined by your definitions. You have a definition of what Spirituality is to you and what you accept or reject is set against that definition.

That's more of a definition than the nature of things, and you don't have to perceive yourself as anything in particular. The nature of things in this case is that if you smoke you have an addiction, then you define yourself as a smoker and that creates your reality. When you redefine yourself as someone who is going to stop smoking/a non-smoker that becomes your reality, and the smoking stops. Been there, done that.

Not sure why you chose to disect my post that way ... You could've just expressed your parallel opinions. (two lines in a plane that do not intersect or touch each other at any point are said to be parallel)

Life can be tough , i try &be thankful , when my depression hits , i can't hardly rise my vibration. I get tired , i do try &be spiritual watch the birds it takes the stress away some.

Ramakrishna said that 9 out of 10 spiritual aspirants subscribe to the motives described in the OP as a reaction to, or to escape from suffering.

Relatively very few - the other 10% - are engaged spontaneously in a search for truth, devotion, service - realization - simply for the delight of it, and recognize from the outset, that this is available and attainable without the need for suffering.

Suffering is the consequence of a conditional ignorance that may be transcended.
Delight is the unconditional and inseparable essence of existence itself.



~ J

Are you here because of the human suffering?
 

ThatMan,

My answer to why I am here is yes to both of your questions.

I've discovered that an answer to the one "Are you here because of your own suffering" may contain a key to answering the other one "...and the suffering you see in the world"?

How? Over 30 years ago, I was struck by a sentence I'd read in the 1st of 6 books entitled "Life and Teaching of the Masters of the Far East" written by a man named Baird Spalding. All that I had thought I knew about myself and the world I live in, changed upon reading a single paragraph in the first chapter of that book (reference below),

""I wish to call your attention more fully to the fact that man in his right domain is limitless, knows no limit of time or space. Man, when he knows himself, is not obliged to toil wearily along for five days to accomplish ninety miles. Man in his right estate can accomplish any distance, it matters not the magnitude, instantly. A moment ago I was in the village from which you departed five days ago. What you saw as my body still reposes there. Your associate, whom you left in that village, will tell you that, until a few moments before four o'clock, I conversed with him, stating that I would go to greet you as you would arrive here about this hour..."

Since then, and continuing to this very day, the realization that "..man in his right domain is limitless....", provides an enduring guiding light to the "right domain", which has always been "right within" me!

If within me, then why not within ALL, who may have heretofore been as utterly unaware as I?

When one is suffering, does it have to remain that way for us individually or collectively after discovering our own power to triumph? Well, does it?

Hope the "limitless" realizations awaiting in the references, below, and whose themes are continued in Richard Bach's epic book, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, that I've used as my signature since joining Spiritual Forums....help you definitively answer the "Well, does it?" question for yourself.

Enjoy! :smile:


Reference: http://www.spiritualforums.com/vb/sh...44&postcount=1

Reference: https://www.crystalclarity.com/yogananda/chapter-43/

Reference: http://www.thechristmind.org/index1.htm

Reference: http://www.spiritualforums.com/vb/sh...2&postcount=26

Well said "...

The earth is a school for us.How you manage it is up to your soul.

.

We are all here for a reason or two .. and suffering is rife ..

Many probably won't agree with my understanding of suffering because it reflects a sense of self rather than not, so unless you are unaware of self in reflection of the world and suffering then one is not living life per se .. they are simply floating about in awareness not knowing what day it is .

Not many have the urge to spend half a lifetime self enquiring and self healing if they are living the dream, they are perhaps quietly content with life as is it, perhaps no major drama's to deal with, no health issues, no death's to come to terms with etc etc ..

Whatever the catalyst will be for one to turn within will be right for the individual, sometimes a dark night of the soul is required, sometimes a thought planted within the subconscious will be suffice enough also ..

There is something however within the energy of suffering where one's intention to bring peace to oneself is raw and absolutely true because there is a feeling that life cannot go on as it is.

When your sitting in a comfy chair with slippers on and pipe pipe in hand the energy is not quite the same ..

In a way at a certain point there is no choice to be drawn into oneself as the current becomes too strong to resist and this leads to the process of surrender ..

Getting back to the point of suffering there is at a point no difference between being aware of what you are and feeling the sufferings of other's ..

In this respect another's sufferings are your sufferings, this is also why when your loved one's suffer you suffer too ...

Spiritual guru types are not exempt from suffering simply because they have realized what they are and are oozing with Love appeal .. they are more open so to speak to feel the sufferings on a collective level ..

I have said it before, nothing is permanent but while there is self awareness there is always suffering to some degree .. The very nature of self awareness is suffering compared to no awareness of self .. self can never be the entirety of the ocean .



x daz x

The root of all suffering is power.(Or ignorance).

Don't blame me for the above post.it just came into my mind whilst I was reading the thread.I'm just the messenger.lol.:biggrin:

They are both, yes. I like the add noting we (can) create our own reality and in fact something to learn (we can do). What about people who cause suffering of others though, are they suppose to learn? You know, often what another person does (themselves) causes suffering in others such as jealousy and wishing they could have things, such as money, etc. All suffering is equal in the mind and cannot be avoided when one thinks about it. What is suffering, in modern times, todays description and feeling is far more open to the individual in how it makes one feel discomfort. Many are here because of what is felt.