understanding SUFFERINGSomeoneasked me recently, 'Why is God so powerful and yet He createsso many miseries?' God didn't create misery, it is our own humanheads that have created all these. God does not make guns. Godnever made atom bombs. It is we who make these with our own hands.So if we stop that, there will be no more misery. It is we whodo not share our property with our poor neighbours. It is we whoare not diligent enough to spread the Truth, to spread the messageof love, of charity, of endurance, of patience, of compassion,for others to listen.
..... Godonly makes beauty. God made the flowers for us to look at. Hemade the sun to warm us, to shine on our world. He made the rainto fertilise our harvest. God never makes destructive things.It is only our own doing, our own negative atmosphere that bringsall these disasters.
Once we understand why we suffer, we can changeit. It is only when we do not understand that we continue. Similarly,when a doctor diagnoses a condition and knows where the sicknessis, he can cure it; but the most important thing is that the patienthimself should know how to live his life in order to stay healthyfor a long time. In order to stay healthy in body, we should knowsome hygienic rules. We should know what food to eat and whatexercises to do, so that we can prevent most diseases. In orderto stay healthy in spirit, we should know what the Law of God,the Law of Nature is. We should know this so that we can stayhealthy in wisdom and become 'God-like,' because God made manin His own image.
..... Wehave many prejudices, many so-called preconceived ideas aboutlife, about enlightenment, about religion, about how we shouldlead our lives, about how religious people should be, about howan enlightened Master should lead his or her life, about how heor she should dress, eat and even speak. I also had many preconceivedideas before, and after enlightenment as well. Before, of coursemore, but after a little bit of enlightenment it was less, andit will become less and less each day. God made me become morehumble each day, until I had no more of my own ideas left, exceptGod's idea. I have to do absolutely what He wants. Just like you,I had to learn by mistakes.
..... Themore we know the less we understand. Because we accumulate toomuch mundane knowledge, we do not understand the True wisdom.So this is our crowded existence. We are too proud with our Ph.D.or whatever knowledge we gain in this mundane world and we forgetthat we are so much greater than that. Actually, when we are tooproud, it means that we look down upon ourselves, because we aregreater than that. Of course, knowledge of this world doesn'tobstruct the spiritual wisdom, but if we cling to it then we arein trouble.
..... Aswe grow higher into spiritual maturity, we become calmer and moreplacid in our thinking, in our life viewpoints. So people keepcoming to us and asking questions. I have tried my best all thetime to satisfy them. But still, it is difficult for some peopleto understand the answers, despite both our best intentions. Itis because we are using our limited understanding faculty to tryto grasp something which is beyond that. I also had many of thequestions myself before, therefore I understand very well whomevercomes to us and asks questions. It seems that they never haveenough answers. That is how our mind is. We always feel inquisitive,because our mind is always inquisitive. It collects a lot of informationdaily, whether bad or good, because the mind doesn't have thepower to discriminate. And most of our misery, dissatisfactionand prejudices, and many discriminations between ourselves andthe subjects in life come from this inquisitive mind, which takesin all kinds of information and possesses it and makes it becomeits own.
So we should be careful of what we read andwhat we hear because if we do not select with discrimination,every other people's ideas and philosophy, sometimes which arenot correct, will sink into our minds and become our own. Andwe will think it is us who thinks this way, who accepts this.And later, when some more information comes which is more correctand helpful to us, we will reject it or we will doubt it, becausepreviously we had already recorded some theory which seems contradictoryto the later one. So whatever we take in, we should first or atleast later examine if these theories, teaching or ideals haveany use to our daily lives or spiritual progress. Otherwise, wewill have so much problem struggling between ideas, between groupsand different thinking systems.
..... Ifwe think that we are already good or excellent, we might be cheatedby the mind. The mind loves glory, loves praise, loves fantasy,thinking that we are good. On the other side, the mind also degradesus. It might sink us into a depression and inferiority complex,and cheat us of our glory also.
..... Sometimes,we think that we are the doer in this world, and therefore wetake all the burdens upon our shoulders. That is why we sometimesget exhausted, and then we get nothing done. If we get enlightenment,we know if we use it. If we know how to use the greatest powerwhich is already provided within us, from which we came, and alsoto which we will return and in which we live our lives, then wewill have less confusion, less and less each day, until no moreconfusion is left in our hearts, except to do the will of theAlmighty. Jesus Christ also mentioned that I do, yes, but notI, it is the Father in me who does it. And in Hinduism it alwaysmentions not I but Thou.
Before enlightenment, of course I had criticismin my mind. I also had dislikes and likes of how other peopleshould live their lives. I had my opinions about many things inthis world, even though they didn't concern me, and didn't harmme, and had absolutely nothing to do with me at all. I would evenventure to criticise them or to try to make things right. Andthat is how we have been busy with our lives. After becoming sotired with criticising the world and trying to make people right,I have come to realise that I am the only one who should improve,and everything else will be all right. God makes us learn by ourmistakes, by lessons and by other people's examples. That is whyI think the old Chinese proverb says that when we walk with twoother people, or three people, one of them, at least one of them,will become our teacher, or is worthy to be our teacher. Thisis the truth that I have learned up to now. Because other people'smistakes also strike some memories within us. They remind us ofsomething that we might have done in the past, and that we shouldnever forget. We should learn from them to improve ourselves,and we should never criticise other people.
..... ButI tell you, forgive yourself. Forgive yourself anytime. Whateveryou do, just make an offering to God and let it be. Whatever theoutcome, because we are not the body anyhow. We are not the action.We are not the doer of anything in this world. Even if we are,suppose we are the doer, we still have to forgive ourselves. Wehave to forgive ourselves when we make mistakes, or when we cannothelp our habits like anger, or sometimes greed, or sometimes lustfulthoughts. These things also arise from circumstances. It is nottruly the Self, it is not truly the soul that desires all thesethings. So if we are angry with ourselves, we should be angryonly with our habits, our accumulated habits. Or we should blamethe situation also, not to blame the Supreme Wisdom, the realSelf, because the real Self never errs, never makes any mistakes.
