“Every action has an equal and opposite reaction”.
This is not only Newton’s Third Law of Motion, but it also reflects the fundamental truth regarding suffering. What is suffering? Simply put any stress or distress on our mental and physical well-being can be regarded as suffering. The suffering, if to be personified,rnmetamorphoses in a crude executioner, who is not partial to any age, race, or breed, it just executes its duty of punishing the accused without any bias.
After understanding what suffering is, next, let us dig deep into ‘who’ suffers. Most people think only humans suffer, but that’s not the truth. We see around us, that many animals, and birds suffer due to climatic catastrophes and National Geography news vouch for it. There is also a myth that only the ‘poor’, economically or mentally, suffer. This is again a debatable issue. If we happen to open any newspaper or an article from any year, past 100 years too, we will have prominent examples of profound personalities from every domain, suffering due to one or the other reason. There is also evidence in the holy scriptures of every religion, depicting how superhumans, demigods and even Gods themselves - Lord Rama, Lord Krishna, Lord Mahavir, Jesus Christ, Guru Nanakdev and many others - had to suffer. This means every living being suffers!
So now, if almighty supreme Gods too suffer, then we have another question - why does one suffer? On investigating further, we understand it is one’s own doing! One’s own actions or decisions result in a person's suffering. Some sufferings are very obvious, and we can fathom the genesis of it and get the solutions. Like, overindulgence in sugar intake results in diabetes, overthinking rolls in anxiety, over negligence results in accidents, and ultimately suffering. In life, all these sufferings seem associated with some direct reason, mostly either our ignorance or wrongdoing. This situation is easily acceptable, and it seems fair to the sufferer, both logically and scientifically, as one feels can overcome these sufferings by adopting the right practices and discipline.
However, the suffering seems rather painful when one feels ‘not at fault’. We get confused and saddened to a great extent, when we are unable to see any of the mistakes or ‘wrongdoings’ contributing to the immense suffering or unbearable pain that one is going through. For example, a newly born infant with incurable disorders/diseases, or when hundreds of innocent people lose their lives on smack of natural calamities- COVID-19 per se, death of hundreds of flying passengers in a flight mishap, political propaganda and geopolitical war like the ongoing middle east dearth, affecting millions with no apparent fault of theirs! How to understand this heartfelt suffering and how does one attain solace in this condition of “unreasonable sufferings”?
The spiritual science explains that people suffer due to his/her own Karma. Every living being, whether a human or an animal, has their ‘karmic accounts’. It is just like our ledger account, where there’s a credit balance, it equates to our happiness in life, and where there’s a debit balance, we have to repay our debt and square off our account; until we don’t repay, it will continue to carry forward with added interest till we pay off every dime and make it a zero balance account. Similarly, in a karmic account too, our good deeds give us happiness and our wrongdoings cause suffering. And if these karma are not balanced off in one lifetime, it gets ‘carried forward’ to the next birth. Until we pay off all the karmic debt, sufferings are bound to be there, and in every next birth, it turns out to become an unresolvable suffrage with no seen valid reason.
So, this unresolvable question of ‘suffering without a reason or an unreasonable suffering’ is very well-explained and resolved by our beloved Param Pujya Dada Bhagwan aka Gyani Purush via the Akram Vignan.
rnAs per Param Pujya Dada Bhagwan,
“Fault is of the sufferer” – if one is able to understand only this much, then not a single clash will remain in the home. [243]…...and that is the key to happiness and a path leading to an end of suffering!
rnThe Self (Soul) is itself the source of bliss. It does not have pain, nor does pain even touch it. Who enjoys [suffers] pleasure? The ego. Who suffers pain? The ego. Who engages in greed? The ego. Who suffers the loss? The ego. Who gets married? The ego. Who becomes a widow [widower]? The ego. It is the ego that suffers all of this!
rnPeople have seen the ‘theory of doership’, but they have not seen the ‘theory of karma’. ‘This man insulted me’, is a ‘theory of doership’; and ‘he is cursing me as a result of unfolding of my karma’, is a ‘theory of karma’. If one understands the ‘theory of karma’, he will not see anyone’s fault.
rnWherever we get punishment, know that it is our own fault only. How would we be punished otherwise? [124] To see others’ faults is a terrible mistake! [1219] Seeing the faults of others is the reflection of our own faults. The biggest fault is that of our own! It is called mad ego!
So,rnThe main fault is our own, which proves that no one else is guilty.
rnAs long as someone gets hurt in the slightest, on your account; its effect will fall upon you. So, beware. If the other person keeps “disadjusting” and you keep “adjusting”, then you will cross this worldly life.
To read more, visit:
https://www.dadabhagwan.org/path-to-happiness/spiritual-science/absolute-vision-of-the-enlightened-one/why-there-is-suffering/