A BLESSING IN DISGUISE

 
Most of man's suffering is self-created through his ungoverned desires and impossible demands. All this is unnecessary for self-fulfillment. If a man becomes desireless and contented, he will be free from his self-inflicted suffering. His imagination will not be constantly harassed by feverish reaching out toward things that really do not matter, and he will be established in unassailable peace.

When an individual is thus contented, he does not require any solutions to problems, because the problems that confront worldly persons have disappeared. He has no problems, therefore he does not have to worry about their solution. For him the complexities of life do not exist because his life becomes utterly simple in the state of desirelessness.

When a person understands desires as being merely the bondage of the spirit, he decides to give them up; but even when voluntary, this is often a painful process. The suffering that comes from purging the mind of its many desires exists — even when the soul may be ready to renounce them — because this decision of the soul goes counter to the inclination of the ego-mind to persist through its habitual desires.

Renunciation of desires curtails the very life of the ego-mind. Therefore it is a process invariably accompanied by acute suffering. But such suffering is wholesome for the soul because it liberates the soul from bondage.

Not all suffering is bad. When suffering leads to the eternal happiness of desirelessness, it should be regarded as a blessing in disguise.