The Point of Suffering Seems to Be to Transcend It - 23rd January 2018

Helen asks: I am starting to understand that life gives me so much suffering not because it is me, but to transcend and to see that it does not exist. So far, it is just a small window of clarity and still I am burning. Could you clarify further?

Very beautiful what you say. You say it is not vindictive, like Ruchi says. It does not mean... the point of suffering there seems to be to transcend it. And once you transcend it, you actually come to this which you say later: to see that it actually does not exist. That which seemed so clear, as if it is a lake of water, you saw it was just a mirage. Why? Because it is not that the sensations of pain did not exist, or the turbulence of some events did not occur, but because the sufferer was already presumed. This presumed individual sufferer never really exists. So, to transcend suffering only means to transcend our individual identity.

Once you see that—the Bhagavan question was 'Who am I?'—once you see that this entity which was the presumed sufferer has not even a little bit of tangible existence, it's just been an idea, then you see that an idea itself does not even exist. So how can it suffer, except in ideas itself? So, to transcend suffering means to transcend the confusion of mistaken identity. That's why I said that all confusion actually is confusion about who we are.

Now, at least for a few months now, I have been the bearer of some very good news. It is that all that needs to be done already is. So, this moment is bringing you this beautiful... just naturally, everything that you are hoping to transcend is already gone. If you see, 'But, but, but it is not gone,' then all that is left to transcend is the 'but, but, but it's not gone.' Whatever notion or idea we might pick up about it is that which remains to be transcended.

How to transcend it? Now you have to scramble to suffer. You have to scramble, you have to work hard. So, the more difficult path is to stay as an identity. The easiest thing is to give it up, because what could be easier than not having to do anything at all? And not having to do anything at all, God is here. But you have to do a lot—maintain the tension, believe all of these things—for you to be here, or pretend to be here individually. So what is easier? Just let God be.