Most likely, each one of us has experienced suffering in life, in one form or the other. The statistics go on to show that today, nine out of ten people in this world are suffering either due to some mental or physical or emotional or financial problem.
WHY DO I SUFFER ?
The word suffering refers to the unpleasant feeling that one experiences while going through the pain or difficulty that one has to go through in a given situation.
While the weak give in to the suffering very easily, the stronger section chooses to practice tolerance and bears the suffering. No doubt, tolerance is a great virtue, but there is a limit to the capacity upto which one can bear, isn’t it? What if the suffering exceeds the tolerance limit? It’s like pressing a spring or straining a rope. How long can a spring remain pressed or how long will a rope tolerate the strain? Wouldn’t huge pressure someday lead to one giving up tolerance altogether?
This means tolerance is not the solution that we are looking at. We don’t want to tolerate, we want to solve the problem at hand such that we can live a life of bliss and joy. So, is there a way we can eliminate the suffering somehow? Let’s see…
THE CAUSE OF SUFFERING
Suffering is an effect. Therefore, there certainly would be a cause behind it!
One generally has a tendency to search for the cause behind one’s suffering outside eg. we see so and so person or such and such situation as the culprit and then blame them to be at fault for our suffering.
However, according to Nature’s law, the one who suffers is actually at fault!
Param Pujya Dada Bhagwan having an enlightened view, discloses, “If we encounter someone who has told us something that has induced suffering within us, it is due to our past causes (karmas). Nobody in this world has the slightest power to cause distress to any individual. This world is so much independent!”
This is proven with the fact that why did I encounter that person or situation and not others? We have encountered them because of our own past karmas (the cause), and we have to reap the effects now in the form of suffering! Thus, it is due to our own faults that we are bound!
HOW TO OVERCOME THIS SUFFERING?
Whenever we undergo suffering, our heart repeatedly cries out in pain saying, ‘What is my fault in this? What wrong have I done in this?’ However, no answer is found. So the lawyers residing within us immediately start litigating that, ‘There is no fault of mine in this. It certainly is that other person’s fault, isn’t it?’ Ultimately, they will make you believe and justify that, ‘If he had not done that, then would I have had to do or say such a bad thing?’ In this way, one covers up his own fault and proves that it is indeed the other person’s fault. Thus, the sequence of karma is created!
Therefore, Param Pujya Dada Bhagwan has given a beautiful, practically applicable maxim, ‘The Fault is of the Sufferer!’ which gives even to the most common person a satisfactory closure to suffering from all angles.
At home, in the business or at work, everywhere, ‘Whose fault is it?’ If you want to find that out, then investigate, ‘Who is the one suffering in this?’ It is that person’s fault. The suffering only exists to the extent that a fault exists. When the fault comes to an end, then no person in this world, no circumstance, will be able to give us suffering.
So, on applying the maxim, ‘Fault is of the sufferer’ and thereafter analyzing and concluding that, “I’m experiencing the result of my own (past) faults; the person is not at fault”, the suffering will subside!
Our anger-pride-deceit-greed are the faults that cause us suffering. And it is due to our ignorance of the Self, that anger-pride-deceit-greed rule over us.
LIFE OF REAL BLISS AND JOY
The real bliss can only be experienced after attaining the Knowledge of the Self (Self-Realization) from The Enlightened One. After Self-Realization, following the words and the teachings of the Enlightened One, we are able to keep the suffering separate and remain in the awareness of our Real Self, which is an abode of eternal bliss!
Thus, to conclude, people say that the power of tolerance should be increased, but how long can it last? How far does the ‘rope’ of the power to tolerate go? The power of tolerance has a limit whereas the ‘Knowledge of the Self’ is unlimited. Therefore, the ‘rope’ of the ‘Knowledge of the Self’ goes all the way to the end. This Knowledge is itself such that the need to tolerate does not remain even to the slightest extent.
With the ‘Knowledge of the Self,’ there is absolute bliss and freedom! Moreover, there is the right understanding that, ‘These are past karmic accounts that are coming to an end and I am becoming free! This makes it possible for us to live a life of bliss and joy without any suffering whatsoever!