REAL ALLEVIATION OF SUFFERING

 
The quest for happiness is irretrievably enmeshed in the problem of the illusion of the world of form with which the individual self has become identified through the body. If this illusion can be shattered, the shackles which bind happiness are automatically shattered as well. But how to shatter the illusion?

An individual who mistakenly believes that he is a coward may live a lifetime of misery during which all his actions are shaped by this incorrect belief. But if some event in his life challenges him so deeply that he unthinkingly strides forth with great courage, then the illusion will suddenly vanish and he will see himself as a different being.

Often it takes real crisis to bring out a sure knowledge of the real inner self, and it is always a creative knowledge.

Even as the individual can be wrong in his convictions regarding his own nature, so he is often quite wrong about the nature of the world around him. In reality, it is a world of illusion that separates him from his true birthright of freedom and happiness in oneness with the One.

Actually, no individual is entirely devoid of some real happiness in some form, for God as an endless and fathomless ocean of bliss is also within every person, and no one is entirely cut off from Him.

Pleasure sought in illusion inevitably results in endless perpetuation of that very same false life of the ego, which leaves the individual exposed to intense suffering.

The whole play of illusion and the suffering it engenders functions by the divinely established law of karma (cause and effect). Therefore suffering must be accepted with grace and fortitude.

It must be remembered that one's own actions are the cause of much of one's suffering, and therefore wise action can minimize it. But real alleviation of suffering requires spiritual enlightenment, and for that man must turn to the Perfect Masters and the God-man (Avatar).