Notes

Stop Useless Suffering Before It Begins
If there could be only one idea - a lamp whose light could show the aspirant of real life the way out of your 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 simply accept. Tell some people the foundation of their present mental or emotional pain is a negative by-product of a mind trapped within an illusion and, generally, their response is to cling even more tightly to their suffering. With few exceptions, the justification of these pain is as follows: given what they have had to endure, there is absolutely no alternative but this - their pain.

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

Many things that have happened, and that continue steadily to happen in our world are, at best, dark and difficult to deal with. Let there be no question concerning this: sleeping humans do terrible things to others, as well as 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 hurl us right into a world of hurt.

The proof of 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 learn how individuals, facing impossibly painful conditions, not merely transcend the hardships they face, but emerge from their website for some reason transfigured. And what you can do, all can do; the victory of a single soul over any darkness lights the path 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. Instead of falling into despair, he continued to help other teenagers who have been similarly injured to overcome their sense of loss also to lead healthy, productive lives.

In an interview about how exactly the accident had changed his life, and how his loss had come to 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 could have been opened to see there was a whole 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 have a tendency to bury most others? Rather than 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 isn't tied to his physical body, or to the results 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 world he had become more limited, actually his universe had expanded to realize 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 into a soul-ennobling opportunity that gave him a whole new way to look at his life. An old Arabic saying suggests the secret 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. Even though many became embittered and hardened within their captivity, some were able to transcend even their horrifying circumstances to build up a relationship with a higher power.

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

Such transformation is basically 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 feel the pain and sorrow that they do.

To be able to see any life event - good or bad - as a "vehicle" to help transport us from our present level of understanding to a higher one, requires that people create a new relationship with these unwanted events inside our lives.

Instead of attempting to protect ourselves from them, we must be willing to see what they are revealing to us about ourselves for the reason that same moment. The difference between these two paths, and their attending possibilities, cannot be overstated. The latter results in a revelation that the Divine already has a higher purpose for our life, one that 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 have of ourselves, with their imagined false purposes.

Yes, the path leading to revelation is more challenging, but only initially. Following its way, we are asked to look for the foundation of our suffering within us, instead of what our suffering points to beyond us as being its cause. Why choose this route?

Because it's only by deliberately illuminating these darkened corners of our 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 choose in favor of this "uphill" path, regardless of how challenging it could appear. His teaching on the subject was direct, and perfectly clear to anyone weary of walking in circles. He always said when facing any difficult situation, including the darkness in oneself: "Take the easy way, and perpetuate the hard life; take the hard way, and realize the easy life."

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

No one is saying to deny this pain, or to otherwise pretend it isn't there. Yes, the sensation of any pain is real, but some tips about what we must come to see - if we'd set ourselves free: all the excuses we're handed - by ourselves - for why we must continue steadily to hurt ourselves are like flies that travel with trash.

The only real 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 energy - you should start throwing useless suffering out the entranceway:

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... may be the source of that pain it justifies.

Key Lesson

We are wrongly led to believe that life makes us into the kind of person we have been. In truth, it's our degree of knowing that makes life what it is for us! check here is why nothing really can change for all of us until we note that attempting to change some condition in life, without first changing the consciousness responsible for its appearance, is like... blaming the mirror for what we don't like 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 may be the best-selling author of more than 40 books and audio albums on self-realization. He is the founder and director of Life of Learning Foundation, a nonprofit center for self-study located in southern Oregon where he gives talks available to the general public four times each week. To learn more please visit http://www.guyfinley.org/

As part of the worldwide release of Guy Finley's new book THE TRICK of one's Immortal Self: Key Lessons for Realizing the Divinity Within, receive five free gifts from Guy, including his groundbreaking new full-length audio album "The Golden Rule of Self-Realization" full of guiding wisdom and the easy practices you should use to begin living from your own authentic self Click for details.
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