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.....
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I definitely think suffering can be a powerful motivation to explore deeper within ourselves.
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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. |
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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! |
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Unless we ourselves suffer how would we truly relate empathetically towards the suffering of others? *** |
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