Dynamics of Suffering – Wise Suffer Less

Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional.

-Unknown

Most of us deal with pain inefficiently and incoherently, thereby increasing our suffering. It must be understood that the root of pain is karma. Just as good karma, when bears fruit provides us with happy circumstances, bad karma, when fructifies, delivers pain. Apart from enlightened souls who have reached a state of ‘akarma’, or those rare wise ones who diligently practice karma-yoga in their everyday life, everyone is performing karma that is bound to yield good or bad results, and one cannot escape them.

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Performance of actions cannot be done away with as long as we are embodied. It’s possible that one may be performing only good karmas or following the tenets of karma-yoga, in which case, the future holds the promise of good times, but the same person may be going through painful and unhappy situations in the present. This is where one must be vigilant so as not to yield to the false premise that someone else is responsible for one’s suffering. Don’t rush to blame others just to get a temporary respite from taking accountability for your own actions. This is the first inefficiency in our dealing with pain. The other person whom we may be quick to blame is only an agent in the hands of nature.

Only the foolhardy succumb to the false understanding that one’s pleasure or pain is caused by someone else. Nature’s exacting laws don’t provide for punishing or rewarding someone without a just cause. Suffering increases manifold when someone fails to accept pain as a consequence of their own doing. This problem is compounded by the fact that one is at times unaware of the karma that is causing pain, as it may be a result of actions performed in previous births. In fact, religions that do not support the idea of reincarnation find it difficult to provide a scientific reason for one’s suffering. They often describe it as a test by the almighty, which for an atheist is quite simply unpalatable, and it leaves them floundering for answers. Maybe the ones holding theistic views would possibly accept it, but this nonetheless makes God a deliverer of pain, which is an absurdity beyond compare. How can one who is bliss itself deliver pain? Pain or suffering cannot exist in God, for if it did, then there would be no purpose, let alone charm, in God-realization.

काहू न कोउ सुख दुख कर दाता। निज कृत कर्म भोग सबु भ्राता।।

– Sri Ram Charit Manas, Ayodhyakand, Verse 2.92

No one gives pleasure or pain to anyone. One gets them as a consequence of one’s own karma.

Sri Ram, in his discourse to Laxman, makes this assertion about ourselves being the creator of our destinies. Good or bad, we reap what we sow. Religion is nothing if not scientific. Nature is nothing if not exacting.

At times our source of pain is actually something we hold very dear to us, in which case, we give the pain and the resultant suffering a hallowed image in our minds, thus justifying its existence and an irrational need to bear it ad infinitum. Instead of trying to be detached, we get even more attached to that particular source. This is the bane of attachment, and unless this bond we have established with our pain as our bosom friend is fractured, there is no real struggle to come out of it. This incoherence in our handling of pain is the second way we cheat ourselves into increasing our suffering.

The other prevalent inefficiency in dealing with our suffering is our lack of faith. Firm belief in the almighty, not as a deliverer of justice but as the deliverer from our bondage of karma, provides a much-needed impetus for us in trodding the righteous path in difficult times. The faithful, while assuming accountability, also stand strong in their belief of God being their savior. Such a lofty attitude almost decimates suffering. They cheerfully embrace the pain and do not lend to it any form of irrational justification. They acknowledge their part in what comes to them. Those who go through the vicissitudes of life with an even temperament will find God’s mercy descending upon them sooner than later. Their fragile boat, in the midst of choppy waters, soon finds a safe harbor.

God promises safe landing, not calm passage.

-Unknown

Let us not face our desserts with acrimony and bitterness but with a calm poise that would blunt the pain and ease the suffering. Let us also not abandon our faith. It is best to beseech the Lord for his causeless mercy in a mode of self-surrender. Faith makes miracles happen.

अकीदतमंदों के साथ ऐसा भी होता है |
जो न हो सके वह होता दिखाई देता है ||

– Zaahid

“For the faithful, what cannot happen also happens”

Finally, the best course of action is to strive for complete freedom from the material nature, the deliverer of pain and pleasure, which is obtained easily by the devoted. The Lord announces

For one who worships Me, giving up all his activities unto Me and being devoted to Me without deviation, engaged in devotional service and always meditating upon Me, who has fixed his mind upon Me, O son of Prtha, for him I am the swift deliverer from the ocean of birth and death.

– Geeta Ch 12, Verse 6