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by Jayaram V
Since sorrow plays such a vital role in our lives, comes in so
many
guises and torments us in so many shapes that a proper understanding
of the causes of sorrow, of the underlying factors that give birth
to these monsters of life, is essential in order to find suitable
and appropriate philosophy of life that can help us effectively
deal with them and establish stability and inner peace.
It has to be emphasized again and again that the true purpose
of sorrow is to teach us lessons, to correct our mistakes and actions,
to infuse us with light and wisdom, to act as of it is the disguised
master of our enlightenment and to lay the seeds for the elimination
of illusion and ignorance and the manifestation of a divine centered
spiritual life on earth.
The moment we realize these purposes and admit suffering as a
guiding and correcting mechanism, we actually find the true and
most effective remedy for our suffering. With such a realization,
suffering becomes less harmful and more acceptable, less destructive
and more beneficial. It actually shows the way.
It becomes the light in the world of darkness, our friend and
philosopher in the hostile world of rivalry and competition. It
opens up and shows us the pearl hidden in its bosom. The menacing
thundering clouds become life nourishing rain - the purifier of
earth and its elements.
Thus by learning valuable lessons out of our suffering, making
it an object of our deep study, accepting it as the fundamental
first step towards purification and spiritual transformation, we
can make suffering a source of enlightenment and spiritual dawn,
rather than a source of sepulchral darkness and misery.
Transience and change, attachment, desire, sensory activity,
ignorance and illusion, egoism and absence of faith and belief in
oneself and in the Divine are some of the causes underlying human
suffering, in whose study and understanding we have the hope to
find the remedy and the possibility of the real integration of earthly
life with divine life and preparing man for a higher and more responsible
existence.
These factors contribute collectively and individually, with incredible
predictability of an inherent design, to the creation of circumstances
that drag the individual into the mire of suffering and compel him
to search for means to escape from the struggle and find solutions
for a better and more satisfying existence.
Of this there is little doubt - suffering is the process of purification
of the soul. It is the process of creation, of transformation, of
divinization of soul, of the elevation of consciousness into higher
planes of existence.
It is the outpouring of divine justice and compassion into the
human life to put the deviated soul back into the spiritual track,
the process in which one becomes aware of one true roots and origin
and starts yearning to go back.
It is the burning of the impurities in the metal before the golden
statue is made, the creation of the sculpture through the painful
process of cutting, hitting, chiseling and polishing, the birth
of a spiritual cherub in the womb of earthly life.
The complete transformation of the lower self, of the elimination
of old tendencies that perpetuate the old vibration of the mind
and movement of the thought, through the process of suffering leading
to the awareness of suffering and of the wrong movements of the
self, is the central theme of all spiritual awakening in the world
of mortal existence.
The awareness of the cause in its wake generates the awareness
of the solution, the answer comes through the question, the effect
is found in the cause.
The Gita does not enumerate these causes separately. There is
no didactic analysis of suffering as such in its chapters. There
is no distinct theosophical interpretation or eclectic rambling.
But in the words of Lord Krishna, in the glare of his advise
to Arjuna, against the truth of his illuminating solutions to the
sufferings of the humanity, in the examples He cites, the different
paths of salvation He explains, in the qualities He extols, in the
attributes He cites as the attributes of the Divine, the causes
stand out, the human frailties stand out, the incompleteness and
the inherent defects of human existence stand out and stare questioningly
at the readers with penetrating force, generating in them unshakeable
awareness of the reasons for our suffering and the need for caution
to safeguard ourselves against such causes.
The Bhagavad gita is an eye opener for those who have known suffering,
who understand it and genuinely want to be liberated from it. The
Bhagavad gita is a book of solutions. It shows the light and the
way to the human beings who have become accustomed to the ways of
darkness and ignorance.
It helps those who are sincerely interested in finding liberation
from mortality, transience and instability. Even a half hearted
approach to truths contained in the Bhagavad gita would help the
readers to cope with their daily suffering and keep themselves mentally
sane in an other wise stressful and selfish world of intense competition,
and falsification and shrewd manipulation of truth and values.
Suggested Further Reading
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