What we often accept as being true is encouraged by education, social or religious customs, unconscious acceptance of genetics, and overidentification with human history (to name only a few). But what if these are lenses that actually obscure the truth? What if what's true lies outside of all these layers of belief? What if the common practice of our planet was to assess the truth of something according to whether or not it set us free? What if suffering was seen as something to turn us back to truth not to cause us harm or destroy us? And what if the discovery of that truth, was also the antidote to the suffering we found ourselves in? In this way truth becomes real medicine - not only for the mind but for the physical body.
Seen in this light, one of the most poignant statements attributed to Christ Jesus in the gospel of John, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free," when looked at without the lens of dogma, has a universality that applies to everyone. In my experience, prolonged suffering can be averted by understanding it from the outset as a means back to what's true. This perspective lifts me out of a woe is me, defeatist attitude. It also takes me away from the notion that there's a god out there who's looking down and inflicting suffering. Instead it helps me realize that we're all part of the same thing - Love (another word for Truth really). And it could never be the intent of Love to punish or destroy any aspect of Itself. Any gap between what I'm holding in thought and Love is experienced as suffering. The end of suffering isn't about my personal comfort then. It's about restoring alignment for the good of the whole. This larger, less self-focused awareness gives me courage and resolve like nothing else. I see that the overcoming of my so-called personal suffering is lifting a huge burden off human consciousness at large.
As Shakespeare so eloquently wrote:
"Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;"
The often "ugly and venomous" experience of suffering is never about holding us down or destroying us. So let's not prop up our suffering with fancy names and causes. Let's use it in the way it was designed and let it guide us to the jewel ~ alignment with our true nature, love and only Love, and to the truth that sets us FREE.
As we begin to awaken more and more, suffering will no longer be needed because progress will come only through enlightenment.
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