JOY AND HAPPINESS – SUFFERING 

 SORROW AND GRIEF #6

Accept surprises that upset your plans, shatter your dreams, give a completely different turn to your day and who knows, your life. Leave the Father free to weave the pattern of your days.” Dom Helder Camara

The Spectrum of Suffering

“… In the sweat of your face will you eat bread, until you return to the ground; out of it you were taken: for dust you are, and to dust you will return.” Genesis 

Suffering, Grief and Sorrow have a wide spectrum of manifestation from the almost trivial to the most severe. However, suffering is suffering no matter how intense or relatively benign.

“Be master of your petty annoyances and conserve your energies for the big worthwhile things. It isn’t the mountain ahead that wears you out - it’s the grain of sand in your shoe.” Robert Service

When the sand in our shoes instead become “pebbles of regret” in our pockets they bother us and can they can lead to a subtle, chronic form of grief. The Ancestors warn that if they accumulate over the years and are not dealt with they can weigh us down. Unfulfilles goals, aspirations and dreams as well as lack of forgiveness can be a source of sorrow especially when we are about to leave the planet. Sometimes, to release them we have to sail away from our “safe harbor,” navigate another hero’s journey and jettison them overboard.

 

One cannot talk about joy without talking about grief and sorrow. They are the flip side of one another like love and hate and we need their polarity to challenge us. In the balance between the two we find equanimity. It takes spiritual understanding and constant work to find the middle way when challenged by the unpredictable, the unplanned, the unfamiliar, the unpleasant, the uncomfortable and the unexpected, which may undermine our sense of harmony. If we are attentive to our inner being and use inner self-help techniques we can prevail.

The best made plans can unwind depending on the complexity of the variables involved. 

There can be no transformation or growth without conflict. How we handle suffering, sorrow and grief will have a huge impact on our karma when we come to reconcile with a spiritual tribunal on the other side of the veil. Everything is a test of our spiritual fortitude.

Grief can arise from loss of a loved one, work, house, finances or health as well as many other factors, including unfulfilled goals, isolation, loneliness, burn out, the moral injustice around us as well as spiritual malaise. When overwhelming they can lead to soul sickness or even loss.

There is no doubt that grief is very much part of our lives and it’s not what happens to us but how we deal with it that counts. It is good to remember...

This too will pass.

“No matter how long the night the dawn will surely come.” African Proverb

 

There is always the possibility of turning a crisis into something positive. Sometimes the bigger the crisis the more the potential for a huge shift and growth. The bigger the shadow the more the light potential that is behind it. No matter how catastrophic things may be, we are always able to “change the channel” in that moment or move into midstream avoiding the bank of sorrow. Spiritual practice or just seeing someone much less fortunate than we are can turn the switch. 

 

“There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems (rather call them challenges) because you need their gifts.” Richard Bach

 “What the caterpillar calls the end of the world the butterfly calls the beginning.” Zen saying

 

“The soul has no rainbow if the eyes have no tears.”                      Native American saying

 

There is no rose without a thorn. We should take our suffering and make something useful out of it. By helping others, we forget our own pain and with gratitude we can find harmony and happiness again.

Any who bring joy to another, give God joy.  Any who act with love for the other's good and pleasure do themselves partake in God’s rivers of pleasure and good. 

Your teaching is in the shadow of your experiences. 

If not for the tension that comes out of a challenge, even of a crisis, life would be insipid. We would lose the dynamic for progress. These are tests of our spiritual metal and challenge us to become spiritual warriors – spiritual “special forces.” We require tension for spiritual excellence.

“People are like tea bags, you only know how strong they are when you put them in hot water.” Unknown

Peace is to be found in Spacious Mind where one aligns with purity and holiness.

A catastrophic event may push us into the Separation phase of a hero's journey when life as we know out become untenable. The Threshold phase of the hero’s journey is often a dark night of the soul but there is a grail there to be earned. To follow someone else's path is not the right road. We have to find our own way and no one else's.

 

The Four Noble Truths comprise the essence of Buddha’s teachings. They are the truth that all is suffering; the truth of the cause of suffering, the truth of the end of suffering, and the truth of the path that leads to the end of suffering. The First noble truth is the Four Rivers of Suffering - of uncontrolled birth, aging, sickness and death. Buddhists have solutions for these truths and maintain they are the true hedonists because their path will lead to true happiness. We cannot control aging and sickness but we can control our attitude to them. We have some measure of control of death by living consciously so that our vibration will earn a higher realm on the other side of the veil. We cannot control rebirth but if we reconcile our karma skillfully in life we can  be reborn in better circumstances where we can continue our spiritual practice at a higher level. We are all capable of attaining the enlightened Causal realms where we do not have to come back again unless we choose to. 

Our task is to try and maintain innocence amidst the chaos and turmoil and at the moment there is plenty of that – we are swimming in it. Some may say; “it could be worse, it has been worse – look at what has happened with two world wars, the Spanish flu, depressions recessions etc. Be grateful that we are not suffering as much as in some of those times.” This intellectual rationalization helps somewhat but is not a long-lasting solution in making us feel better although it may engender some gratitude. Pain is pain and it is highly personal and we all have differing thresholds for it. The only solution is to look for happiness, serenity, balance, harmony, in the present moment by savoring it and knowing that everything is a test of our spiritual maturity.

“No matter how you stir a pot of filth it is always a pot of filth. Better to let the pot be and string pearls for the sake of heaven." Chassidic saying

“If you don’t want to see the shadow, turn your face to the sun.”  Aboriginal Wisdom

There will be a blog break next week until we begin the next new blog the following one.