“Why All This Suffering?”
The question is significant. But it can be
answered only if you are ready to rise a little higher than the ordinary
logic of life, if you are ready to raise your eyes towards some higher
mathematics.
Lower mathematics has one kind of rules; higher mathematics is just the opposite of it. Pythagoras says there are two laws: that of necessity and that of power. Lower mathematics consists of necessity; higher mathematics consists of power. And their workings are different, utterly different – although they are part of a bigger whole, the primordial law, Logos, Tao, Dharma.
In lower mathematics the part is never equal to the whole. Obviously – how can the part be equal to the whole? But in the higher mathematics the part is equal to the whole. For example: in lower mathematics a dewdrop cannot be the ocean; it is so small and the ocean is so vast. But the difference is only of quantity. Lower mathematics takes account only of quantity; higher mathematics thinks of quality. Then the dewdrop is exactly the ocean. It contains all the oceans. If you can understand a single dewdrop, you have understood all the oceans of all the planets and all the stars and all the earths.
Suffering is your interpretation. You have become too much identified with it – that is your decision. You can disidentify and the suffering disappears. Your suffering is like a nightmare; in the dream you think a great rock has fallen on your chest, it is crushing you to death. Out of fear you awaken...and all that you find is nothing – your own hands resting on your chest. But the weight of your hands triggered imagination in you; it became a rock and you started feeling very frightened. And because of the fear you are awakened...and now you laugh. Ask the awakened ones, and they say there is no suffering in the world – people are fast asleep and dreaming all kinds of sufferings.
And I know your difficulty: if you have a physical problem, if you are blind or if you are crippled how can you believe that this is only a dream? But have you not watched? Every night you dream, and every morning you know that it was a dream and all nonsense – and again you will dream, and in dream again you will believe that this is truth. How many dreams have you dreamed in your life?
It looks very difficult to trust that all that you are suffering is just a dream created by yourself. But it is so – because all those who have become awakened say so; not a single awakened person has said otherwise. And in lucid moments of awareness you will also feel the same.
Your problem cannot be solved only by an intellectual discussion; your problem can be only dissolved, not solved. Your problem can only be dissolved by becoming more aware.
Try to understand...then the dialectics will be seen everywhere. Illness and health can only be both together. Beauty and ugliness, success and failure, pain and pleasure, suffering and blissfulness – they are all part of nature. Once you have understood it, a transcendence happens.
This is what Pythagoras says: The law of necessity and the law of power. The law of necessity pulls you downwards into mechanicalness; the law of power pulls you upwards into the world of freedom. I call these two laws the law of gravitation and the law of grace. One pulls you downward, one pulls you up.
This is how it moves, the pendulum of life: right and left, left and right. This is how life progresses. It is perfectly as it should be.
Lower mathematics has one kind of rules; higher mathematics is just the opposite of it. Pythagoras says there are two laws: that of necessity and that of power. Lower mathematics consists of necessity; higher mathematics consists of power. And their workings are different, utterly different – although they are part of a bigger whole, the primordial law, Logos, Tao, Dharma.
In lower mathematics the part is never equal to the whole. Obviously – how can the part be equal to the whole? But in the higher mathematics the part is equal to the whole. For example: in lower mathematics a dewdrop cannot be the ocean; it is so small and the ocean is so vast. But the difference is only of quantity. Lower mathematics takes account only of quantity; higher mathematics thinks of quality. Then the dewdrop is exactly the ocean. It contains all the oceans. If you can understand a single dewdrop, you have understood all the oceans of all the planets and all the stars and all the earths.
Suffering is your interpretation. You have become too much identified with it – that is your decision. You can disidentify and the suffering disappears. Your suffering is like a nightmare; in the dream you think a great rock has fallen on your chest, it is crushing you to death. Out of fear you awaken...and all that you find is nothing – your own hands resting on your chest. But the weight of your hands triggered imagination in you; it became a rock and you started feeling very frightened. And because of the fear you are awakened...and now you laugh. Ask the awakened ones, and they say there is no suffering in the world – people are fast asleep and dreaming all kinds of sufferings.
And I know your difficulty: if you have a physical problem, if you are blind or if you are crippled how can you believe that this is only a dream? But have you not watched? Every night you dream, and every morning you know that it was a dream and all nonsense – and again you will dream, and in dream again you will believe that this is truth. How many dreams have you dreamed in your life?
It looks very difficult to trust that all that you are suffering is just a dream created by yourself. But it is so – because all those who have become awakened say so; not a single awakened person has said otherwise. And in lucid moments of awareness you will also feel the same.
Your problem cannot be solved only by an intellectual discussion; your problem can be only dissolved, not solved. Your problem can only be dissolved by becoming more aware.
Try to understand...then the dialectics will be seen everywhere. Illness and health can only be both together. Beauty and ugliness, success and failure, pain and pleasure, suffering and blissfulness – they are all part of nature. Once you have understood it, a transcendence happens.
This is what Pythagoras says: The law of necessity and the law of power. The law of necessity pulls you downwards into mechanicalness; the law of power pulls you upwards into the world of freedom. I call these two laws the law of gravitation and the law of grace. One pulls you downward, one pulls you up.
This is how it moves, the pendulum of life: right and left, left and right. This is how life progresses. It is perfectly as it should be.
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