The Problem of Human Suffering.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by Manik

What causes suffering? Polarity, from my perspective, is the cause. You cannot have good without the bad and viseversa.

Can we fix it? Yep

How? Fix yourselves and the world will show reflection of it.

suffering isn't all that bad for how can we truly appreciate the good if we haven't endured through the bad. Isn't that why were are here in the first place, or have you all forgotten?

Thats just how I see it.

from my perspective... i don't understand polarity or how opposing principles are a problem.

i wonder why many people have the opinion we can fix it when in all the thousands of years there has been suffering, and so many have worked to alleviate it, but to this day this world has much much suffering.

The enlightened ones... they see a world in need of healing therefore see the suffering in the world.

oh my. the objective view is not blind to the cruelty and injustice people bear and also commit, and fixed or broken as i may be, there are wars and children are brutalized and kony forces them to kill and rape.... and the scars run deep in the ones who have killed, as deep as those in the families of their victims.

so quick we are to be wise, we leap upon the nearest answer, but myself I see the mire and chaos from with it's complete insensibility.

the wise only judge you see my friend, say it is of myself i speak, and i loathe to speak at all under such scrutiny, but this issue is the crux ofthe human dilemma, and i care nothing for flacid wisdom.

My conviction is that mankind needs acknowledge the problem, and an ugly terrible thing it is, no doubt, and to realize it to its full extent, the very scale of the damned thing... butit is his nature toavert his eyes to the repulsive, and ignore it in favour of pleasing things.

Originally Posted by Gem

Clearly, there is suffering, I guess all the enlightened ones over all the history of man can't solve it...

What I think is a tendency is people consider the removal of hunger and pain and emotional turmoil to be the end of suffering... but I think there is is a sensory system, and extreme sensory stimulation is unpleasant... ie, burns hurt.

The africans starve... but it just so happens if there's a drought, there's lack of food and water, so people starve. InJapan there's a tsunami so people are maimed killed and driven from their homes.... lose their relatives, husbands, children to the ocean.

These things don't go away. That's life as it is.

The scope of human suffering is precisely in how human's approach life and suffering.

All the great religious figures of history, that was their message. I'm not advocating Buddhism, but I do think Buddhism is a great example. Compassion. Awareness. Right thought leading to Right action. Separation of oneself from suffering in the actuality of consciousness and life.

In life death is inevitable, pain is inevitable, loss is inevitable, but were we to truly unite in compassion and action and work together such things could be highly mitigated. How we approach loss and suffering in our own attitudes and perspectives IS the difference between hope and despair.

All that is asked of us is that we take responsibility for our own outlook and work to change it - but this is far too much to ask of most people. Most people want no such thing - they want 'Daddy in the sky' to tell them it's all okay, to take away the hurt and assure them that nothing is required of them, that it was all just a friendly joke and now we can go back to our tiddlywinks without care or fear.

I look around me and I see that life is dead serious. It seems to me it is ALL about what we choose - and failure to choose is a choice. The choices ARE ours - and we get to live with their consequences, for better or worse.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by Humm

The scope of human suffering is precisely in how human's approach life and suffering.

All the great religious figures of history, that was their message. I'm not advocating Buddhism, but I do think Buddhism is a great example. Compassion. Awareness. Right thought leading to Right action. Separation of oneself from suffering in the actuality of consciousness and life.

In life death is inevitable, pain is inevitable, loss is inevitable, but were we to truly unite in compassion and action and work together such things could be highly mitigated. How we approach loss and suffering in our own attitudes and perspectives IS the difference between hope and despair.

All that is asked of us is that we take responsibility for our own outlook and work to change it - but this is far too much to ask of most people. Most people want no such thing - they want 'Daddy in the sky' to tell them it's all okay, to take away the hurt and assure them that nothing is required of them, that it was all just a friendly joke and now we can go back to our tiddlywinks without care or fear.

I look around me and I see that life is dead serious. It seems to me it is ALL about what we choose - and failure to choose is a choice. The choices ARE ours - and we get to live with their consequences, for better or worse.

he knows the outlook of most people, and knowingly derides all others, as this has the effect of self elation by comparison; and of course it can be validated by deeming the others 'responsible' for their deemed childishness.

consider the kony child warriors... who chose to be taken from their homes... how ridiculous... they try to say choice is the holy grail, the solution, the answer... but actually these children were forcibly removed.

in the innocence of the child, manipulators coerce them unsing a deftness beyond child reckoning, then the wise comes and says they choose the gross defilements against them... and one should understand... the perpetrators also make them feel they chose, and consented.

Ugh, shocking! This circumstance seems to render the 'choice answer' ludicrous, and quick to avert the eyes from what shatters our spiritual wisdoms... surely, somehow this 'choose' must be the Truth...

so many things are not chosen, the droughts storms tsunamis kidnappings and on and on, then it's softer, and what is seemingly chosen is actually manipulative coercement.

Now it's your choice jack, just build a bridge and get over it.

Originally Posted by Gem

he knows the outlook of most people, and knowingly derides all others, as this has the effect of self elation by comparison; and of course it can be validated by deeming the others 'responsible' for their deemed childishness.

consider the kony child warriors... who chose to be taken from their homes... how ridiculous... they try to say choice is the holy grail, the solution, the answer... but actually these children were forcibly removed.

in the innocence of the child, manipulators coerce them unsing a deftness beyond child reckoning, then the wise comes and says they choose the gross defilements against them... and one should understand... the perpetrators also make them feel they chose, and consented.

Ugh, shocking! This circumstance seems to render the 'choice answer' ludicrous, and quick to avert the eyes from what shatters our spiritual wisdoms... surely, somehow this 'choose' must be the Truth...

so many things are not chosen, the droughts storms tsunamis kidnappings and on and on, then it's softer, and what is seemingly chosen is actually manipulative coercement.

Now it's your choice jack, just build a bridge and get over it.

Yes, that's it Gem, dredge up the most shocking disparate circumstance you can think of, and use it to build your case.

All right you have built it. Are you ready to face the responsibility of your statements - your actions? Is Kony? Is anyone who is actually at the maturity level to make those choices?

You cry and moan about the state of the world at every chance - and persecute any attempt to change it. That will be your legacy. Accept it. Face it.

When someone asks you what you do to make a better world, what will you tell them - that you stifled any attempt at self direction - at any attempt to link choice and responsibility?

Tell me Gem - honestly - just how proud are you of yourself?

Go ahead Gem. Defend yourself.

I feel it is self evident that we live in a shared universe.

We exist seemingly subject to many forces beyond our control, but at the same time we can and do exert force as well, on the world and on each other.

I'm sure most people would agree any concept of 'fairness' would be better than what we appear subject to in life, but as my esteemed forum brother above has pointed out some of the most horrific tragedies involve what we do to each other. It cannot be observed however as a statement of powerlessness of the human condition without also observing the abuse of human power that accords those incidents.

I keep saying it, but I think it bears repeating, that every abuse is proof of the freedoms of the human condition. So is every moral accomplishment, every cooperative achievment - but you can't have one without the other. Freedom means the ability to succeed, and it also means the ability to fail. Freedom without the ability to fail is no freedom - it is simply following a pre-determined track, with one outcome. I look around me and I see that life is not like that - I see that choices matter, and consequences matter. Life is dead serious. Truly, the responsibility is ours.

I see it repeated over and over on this forum that there is no wrong and right, that it is just relative - preference - but a 'wrong' action is readily and confidently pulled out of the theater of human events above, and no one argues. We KNOW what is wrong and right - but we are not compelled. We only have our hearts and the consequences to guide us - if we choose to listen.

In fulfillment of the promise of True Freedom, we are left seemingly on our own. We have to choose. Sometimes we get it right - and sometimes we don't.

[Lynn]

Hello

I have been looking at what is freedom lately. We talk on Free Will we talk on helping parts of the World be Free but are we not at times imprinting what we feel that is on other's ? I have been told that our Soul is here to experience every level of understanding and that is in the good and the bad things of mankind.

As a Medium I have come to work with what many would call the lowest forms of life on the Earth but are they not the same honestly as me....flesh and blood and strands of DNA that make me a human being as they too were ? I do not judge them in coming forth to me even if that be in an aggressive manor, as there is lessons to learn on one's personal boundries of fear and respect.

It is easy to live in a country such as I do where there are the safety nets in place where one gets (for the most part ) the help that one needs, but to we complain and we want more or want it faster or better. We fail to stop and thank the person bagging our food at the store or hold the door for the next person coming in....little things but we too have those luxuries other's do not.

We can look at the pictures of sufferings aroudn the World and send money there and feel our job is done but does it honesly change that place of freedoms....as they are already free beings as I so feel we CHOOSE what life we come into on some level but we might well fight it coming in. I know I did in this life I am in but I have found that place of moving past the human suffering it had for me.

We are moving ever forwards I honestly feel that we have not had a "WAR" on the grand scale of WWI or WWII since then, is that not moving forwards. We are trying to make better Earth choices but in that we too are altering the natural order of things on many a level and will that might lead us to our dimise? Maybe too that is one's path as man.

One man's truth is another man's lie....we simply have to find that place to meet in the middle. I had to laugh when me Son said to me Mom what goes up must come down, the bubbles I am blowing are going up are not coming down, they are popping. I said to him well a part of them is coming down....we just dont see the particles is all. He simply saw the bubble as the whole thing that went up....

Lynn

This is a very deep subject...I don't think there is any perfect answer. To consider the plight of those less fortunate is commendable.

[Gem]

I see what we all see, war and terrible degeneracy, and sure you think the child is responsible for being taken in the night...

Free will is a choice, be the killer or the killed, and I can go on to explain how sublty that is manipulated, some things are manipulated for a lifetime, even over generations.

We may take the spiritual rules like 'responsibility' and 'mirrors' and 'projectors' etc pretend they are true. It makes us seem very wise when it appears we have the answers, explanations for everything.

Myself, I am much less reckless with the word 'responsibility'. It is one of those words which can be used, as it very often is, as way of blaming the other person... eg 'mirror rule'.

Originally Posted by Humm

Yes, that's it Gem, dredge up the most shocking disparate circumstance you can think of, and use it to build your case.

All right you have built it. Are you ready to face the responsibility of your statements - your actions? Is Kony? Is anyone who is actually at the maturity level to make those choices?

You cry and moan about the state of the world at every chance - and persecute any attempt to change it. That will be your legacy. Accept it. Face it.

When someone asks you what you do to make a better world, what will you tell them - that you stifled any attempt at self direction - at any attempt to link choice and responsibility?

Tell me Gem - honestly - just how proud are you of yourself?

Go ahead Gem. Defend yourself.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by merrie

This is a very deep subject...I don't think there is any perfect answer. To consider the plight of those less fortunate is commendable.

I agree merrie. I don't think there's any particular answer either.

I wonder really, because other people don't really want pity, it's kinda condecending. I guess the term 'less fortunate' is fair in some ways, but I'd be cautous using language which has 'less' as part of it.

I could call something that happens to someone 'unfortunate' but I hesitate to consider the person less fortunate, and in the end everyone needs a helping hand in some way, so I agree that consideration is commendable.

Originally Posted by Gem

I see what we all see, war and terrible degeneracy, and sure you think the child is responsible for being taken in the night...

Free will is a choice, be the killer or the killed, and I can go on to explain how sublty that is manipulated, some things are manipulated for a lifetime, even over generations.

We may take the spiritual rules like 'responsibility' and 'mirrors' and 'projectors' etc pretend they are true. It makes us seem very wise when it appears we have the answers, explanations for everything.

Myself, I am much less reckless with the word 'responsibility'. It is one of those words which can be used, as it very often is, as way of blaming the other person... eg 'mirror rule'.

All right Gem. You win.