Notes

Stop Useless Suffering Before It Begins
If there may be only one idea - a lamp whose light could show the aspirant of real life the way from the prison of dark thoughts and punishing feelings - it could surely be this: Your true Self doesn't win in life by overpowering problems, but by revealing they never really existed as you once believed they did.

Truths such as this can be difficult to accept. Tell some people the foundation of these present mental or emotional pain is really a negative by-product of a mind trapped in an illusion and, generally, their response would be to cling even more tightly with their suffering. With few exceptions, the justification of their pain is as follows: given what they have had to endure, there is no alternative but this - their pain.

So before we go any farther, let's set the record straight:

Many things which have happened, and that continue steadily to happen inside our world are, at best, dark and difficult to handle. Let there be no question relating to this: sleeping human beings do terrible what to others, in addition to to themselves.

But the a key point here, for all those seeking the Self that never dies, is that passing events - in themselves - don't have the power to make us suffer. It is our negative reactions that first blind us, bind us, and then hurl us right into a world of hurt.

The proof this crucial finding, that events themselves aren't the foundation of our psychological suffering, is situated in the inspiring life stories of several people throughout history. One at a time, we understand how individuals, facing impossibly painful conditions, not only transcend the hardships they face, but emerge from their website in some way transfigured. And what you can do, all may do; the victory of a single soul over any darkness lights the road for all that follow. A few real-life stories help illustrate this beautiful truth.

Not many years ago, an excellent young athlete was injured in an accident that left him paralyzed. Rather than falling into despair, he went on to help other young people who have been similarly injured to overcome their sense of loss and to lead healthy, productive lives.

In an interview about how exactly the accident had changed his life, and how his loss had arrived at enrich the lives of others like himself, he made some very revealing comments. He told the reporter that without the accident that took his legs, his eyes never would have been opened to see there is a complete new dimension of life just looking forward to him to be awakened to it. His life-shattering experience had so transformed all he knew about life before it that, if given a selection, he wouldn't change whatever had happened.

How did he turn out together with life-conditions that tend to bury most others? Instead of be dragged down by it, he decided to learn the life-elevating lesson that lies hidden in every unwanted moments.

Choosing this right path when confronted with his pain brought him immeasurable rewards. For instance, he came to realize, as we must, that his true Self is not tied to his physical body, or to the outcome of any unwanted circumstances. His awakening to truths like this fulfilled him with techniques that no man-made trophy ever could. Although in the eyes of the planet he had are more limited, in fact his universe had expanded to understand a fresh sense of freedom beyond anything he could have wished for in his former state. A devastating event, that could have sown the seeds of bitter regret and resentment, grew instead right into a soul-ennobling opportunity that gave him a complete new solution to look at his life. A vintage Arabic saying suggests the trick behind this triumph: "The type of rain may be the same, nonetheless it makes thorns grow in the marshes and flowers in the gardens."

In his inspiring book Man's Seek out Meaning, Viktor Frankl describes his experiences as a prisoner in a Nazi death camp. While many became embittered and hardened in their captivity, some were able to transcend even their horrifying circumstances to build up a relationship with an increased power.

No longer tied to the meanness and cruelty of the world where they found themselves physically, they achieved a spiritual understanding that lifted their lives - and others around them in exactly the same dark situation - far beyond the reach of man's inhumanity to man.

Such transformation is largely incomprehensible to those who believe their anger at some injustice makes their hatred righteous. The spiritually blind suffer only themselves, but always "see" others to be in charge of why they have the pain and sorrow that they do.

In order to see any life event - good or bad - as a "vehicle" to greatly help transport us from our present degree of understanding to an increased one, requires that people create a new relationship with these unwanted events in our lives.

Instead of attempting to protect ourselves from them, we must be ready to see what they're revealing to us about ourselves in that same moment. The difference between these two paths, and their attending possibilities, can't be overstated. The latter results in a revelation that the Divine already includes a higher purpose for our life, one which includes all of the powers we must transcend any painful situation; as the former path ensures worries and suffering that are inseparable from attempting to protect the false images we've of ourselves, with their imagined false purposes.

Yes, the path leading to revelation is more challenging, but only in the beginning. Following its way, we are asked to consider the source of our suffering within us, instead of what our suffering points to outside of us as being its cause. Why choose this route?

Because it's only by deliberately illuminating these darkened corners of our very own consciousness - where shadowy parts of us work in secret to misdirect us - that their authority over us could be brought to an end.

Author Vernon Howard always encouraged his students to select and only this "uphill" path, in spite of how challenging it may appear. His teaching about them was direct, and perfectly clear to anyone weary of walking in circles. He always said when facing any difficult situation, like the darkness in oneself: "Take the easy way, and perpetuate the hard life; take the hard way, and realize the easy life."

Though it may seem too steep a hill to climb, especially the very first time we consider its ascent, nevertheless, here's the first step that leads to freedom from useless suffering: we should begin to doubt our own suffering. To the idea the masses cry, "Impossible... Pain so real as ours is undeniable!"

No one says to deny this pain, or to otherwise pretend it's not there. Yes, the sensation of any pain is real, but here's what we must arrived at see - if we'd set ourselves free: all of the excuses we're handed - by ourselves - for why we should continue steadily to hurt ourselves are like flies that travel with trash.

The only purpose they serve is to make something worthless seem valuable; garbage is garbage, no matter how it comes wrapped!

Consider closely the twin truths in the next summary of the study. Within them rests the understanding - and the power - you have to start throwing useless suffering out the door:

1. The justification of any negative state serves one end only: the protection and the preservation of the type in charge of its manifestation.

2. Any section of our nature that finds good reason to justify our pain... is the source of that pain it justifies.

Key Lesson

We are wrongly resulted in think that life makes us in to the kind of person we are. In truth, it's our degree of understanding that makes life what it really is for us! That is why nothing really can change for all of us until we see that trying to change some condition in life, without first changing the consciousness in charge of its appearance, is similar to... blaming the mirror for what we can't stand seeing in it!

From The Secret of one's Immortal Self by Guy Finley. © 2015 by Guy Finley. Used by permission from Llewellyn Worldwide, Ltd.

Guy Finley is the best-selling author of a lot more than 40 books and audio albums on self-realization. He could be the founder and director of Life of Learning Foundation, a nonprofit center for self-study situated in southern Oregon where he gives talks available to the general public four times every week. For more info please visit http://www.guyfinley.org/

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