Face suffering to rise

Suffering is universal and no one can escape it. Bad things happen to good people too as life is a mixture of heavenly pleasure and hellish suffering. Shakespeare wrote, “Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shall not escape calumny.” All great men suffered a great deal in life and came out greater. We need to know how to face suffering, endure it and transform the painful pebbles into stepping stones.

When we see our house has caught fire, we need to extinguish it immediately instead of wasting time over investigation into the reasons behind the fire. Suffering is said to be caused by Karma as it is intended to shape us as better human beings. But instead of going into a philosophical probe into the rootcause of suffering, we must first of all learn how to face it without being broken by it.

We all suffer in life. But we have the tendency to magnify suffering and ignore good things we have. A man unhappy for not having a pair of shoes becomes happy after seeing a man having no foot at all. We must count good things we have to offset the unhappiness.

Suffering comes with a lesson we need to learn. We must thank God for giving us an opportunity to learn through suffering. While happiness makes us dull, superficial and stagnant suffering makes us reflective, introspective and unattached to anything external.

Along with suffering comes strength and endurance. So the stones of suffering are indeed the stepping stones to go higher and higher. Mercy and the healing touch of God invariably follow suffering. It may not always be possible to see the hidden blessings behind suffering but we must look beyond the myopic vision and pray for better understanding.

Maharshi Patanjali identified five root-causes of suffering — spiritual ignorance, egoism, attachment, aversion and clinging to life. We can overcome these by spiritual practice for root-cause remedy and attain transcendental bliss beyond suffering.