suffering

Have you ever had a bad toothache? The pain is a constant throbbing and really tests the preconceived notions you have developed about yourself. I surely no longer am a being of love and light. As well, I think I can transmute the pain because after all the pain is just a state of mind, right? I should be able to train my mind to find pain exhilarating. I got this! Nope. Still there. The suffering gets to the point where I must act to relieve the suffering.

When I was a teenager, I recall having a bad toothache. A "baby molar" was in decay and one day chewing a large wad of bubble gum exacerbated the situation. The sugar hit the nerve and I was in agony. Being a stoic, I retired to my room to suffer in pain. Finally, after enduring the excruciating pain all afternoon, I felt compelled to act. I went to the bathroom, found a bobby pin, jammed it in the cavity, and pulled my tooth out. I had a mouthful of blood, but I felt so much relief. My outlook on life immediately changed.

In my adult life I have had similar toothaches. I tend to avoid the dentist, so I had to find alternative solutions to my predicament that didn't involve the constant ingestion of pain relief pills. For sure, ibuprofen will allow you to sleep at night because a toothache surely won't. Eventually, my oral search led me towards sensitive teeth toothpaste, and I became a follower. With regular and disciplined application of this product, the pain subsides. As an adult in my 50s, I have the typical receding gums and enamel erosion. An apple a day keeps the doctor away, but the acidic qualities of fruit invite the dentist to your door. Sensitive teeth formulations I am a big believer in. Similarly, I had terrible eczema as a young adult. The prescribed steroid creams didn't offer the solution and so I had to find my own answers. Eventually, I found aloe vera cream. Aloe vera is a godsend, or should I say goddessend? I now live a symbiotic existence with aloe vera.

Having a toothache is a great spiritual teacher. It's clearly superior to going to church or mastering physical postures. This assertion is predicated upon the suffering that causes you to act in order to find answers and relief from your painful condition. Life can be painful, and the suffering will compel you to also seek out answers.

Ram Dass tells a story where his guru Maharaji-ji exclaims all suffering is grace. Ram Dass' initial reaction to this assertion mirrored my own. How could a high spiritual being make such a claim? Suffering is the enemy and anyone on the spiritual path should be relieving suffering, not be blasé about it. Even if I accept that all suffering is grace, I still don't understand it until I probe my own life and see how I seek answers because of suffering. My transformation is given the necessary impetus via suffering. Once grokked, the statement of the guru becomes an obvious truth. It doesn't mean we don't work towards relieving suffering where we can, but we also see its divine quality.

Life on earth is defined by suffering. Along with needing a heat source, we endlessly suffer because of biological demands. In essence, we are set up to suffer. Hunger compels us to seek out food and in dire situations we directly take life in order to eat, just like an animal. Us modern day humans have offloaded the killing to places that are out of sight, so we don't see it. We go to the supermarket where everything is packaged and looks nice. Look at the exquisite marbling on that scrumptious piece of grade A beef! We obscure the fact that as animals we have to take life in order to survive. The plant kingdom is one up on us. Plants survive on the natural elements, being able to use photosynthesis to transform light and they ingest minerals through the soil thanks to water. They absorb carbon dioxide in the air. On the other hand, we kill plants and animals and extract their nutrients in our primitive stomachs.

Mother Earth provides what we need to survive. Given free will, humans increase the amount of suffering in the world through greed. We hoard resources and the reciprocal result is that many go without, while a few prosper. Most of the world lives in poverty while in the First World we have it good. Even in our societies the same situation plays out where there are players who amass huge sums of wealth while others in these wealthy nations live in poverty. The elite buy access to power, enrich themselves in the public trough, enact favourable legislation, and in turn the divide gets even worse.

When everything is going my way, I get content and fat. I live a life of leisure and don't feel compelled to act or change. When I am faced with adversity, I become focused and determined to change my situation and reach the goal I established for myself. To not act would mean slipping into a crippling depression which would result in death. So, it seems suffering will transform or kill you. That's a tough teacher. The outcomes mimic what I have experienced on the spiritual path where I had to deal with a masculine force that was going to destroy me unless I changed. My spiritual father taught transformation through unorthodox methods of harassment with the result forcing me to either change, run, or perish. I chose the path of transformation due to a thirst for knowledge and wanting to get back to the Goddess, who is love. The fear compelled me to act and transform into a warrior who would vanquish the enemy. My father played the part of the dragon masterfully and I am forever grateful for all he did, ultimately becoming who I am because of suffering.

War, famine, pestilence, pandemics, disease, and natural disasters. Loss of loved ones. Depression. Envy and jealousy. Greed. Suffering is part of the curriculum and to be in a human body on this earth is pointing towards action. I've never been sold on life having any kind of purpose but rather we can make it purposeful, and the grace of suffering gives us the push we need to take the course and work towards graduation.

I have looked at life and seen how easily we can make it hell. We were given a garden and we destroyed it. I have wondered why am I here? Clearly, it is a mistake because I don't think I should be in hell. Why did I deserve to go to this hell? I went to hell in order to enact transformation which will lead me towards the path of the heart and back home to the Goddess.