Suffering

[Russell Smith]

The student’s question is in BLUE.
My response is in BLACK.

Why do we have to suffer so much? It is painful and I am trying to understand it. It seems as if it does not matter what I do in life, change my career, do something I love. I still suffer. If we are not one thing, are we just different energies constantly changing and moving?

Suffering occurs when things happen differently than we wished for them to happen. We wanted to hit the nail on the head with the hammer but, instead, we hit our thumb and suffered pain, or became upset when we dented the base board.

Most suffering is this kind of suffering. It is mechanical suffering. It is not real.

In truth, the only real suffering, which we should all have, is remorse of conscience, which Gurdjieff called AIEIOIUOA.  I like to spell it rather than pronounce it, because, for me, spelling it kind of sounds like a moment of remorse of conscience.

Real suffering occurs at moments when we realize that we are not what we are supposed to be, and becomes a force that can drive us to self-perfection.

Fortunately, we found an objective way to do that… so, if we rapidly get on with the cure, we can soon cease to suffer.

Note: If everything is Law-conformable, it is impossible to suffer.

Addendum:

There are three kinds of suffering: Mechanical, Intentional, and Conscious.

Suffering is of the essence.

We can suffer in the Instinctive center, in the Emotional center, or in the Higher Emotional Center.

In the Instinctive center: If we have no food and do not eat, we will suffer mechanically. However, if we have food and choose not eat, we will suffer intentionally.

In the Emotional center: If our lucky shirt, which we always wear when our favorite team plays, gets sent to the cleaners… and we are unable to wear it for the big game, we will suffer mechanically. But, if we choose to not wear it for the big game, we will suffer intentionally.

However, in the Higher Emotional Center there is only conscious suffering. That is, when we are unified, we will objectively see ourselves.  We will see that we are overweight and will cut down on food. When we do, the Instinctive Center may consciously suffer because it misses the taste of chocolate and ice cream, or the emotional center may consciously suffer because it misses the feeling it gets from being well fed.  Furthermore, our conscience will understand that the shirt we wear has no effect on the outcome of the big game.  However, our emotional center may still consciously suffer, because (by habit) it still believes that it does. 

[Author]

Posts