OCTOBER/NOVEMBER NEWSLETTER
THE CHALLENGE OF SUFFERING
Written by José Manuel Meseguer
Facing suffering
with dignity, drawing on its lessons, is one of the greatest challenges facing
human beings…but when it appears, it fulfills an extraordinary therapeutic
function.
Great avatars [morally superior spirits] that have passed through humanity were
not exempt from it. However, they were able to face it with enormous strength
and wisdom, serving as an example and inspiration for all, in different times…
Suffering is part of our evolutionary process, it is everywhere and it touches everyone
in one way or another. Spiritual knowledge tells us that we live in a world
that is still in the tests and atonement phase, which means that happiness is
not a general common denominator; not even in the best cases one is in a
position to know happiness in its true fullness. There are moments, flashes
that sooner or later pass, like all things that happen on Earth.
Everything is temporary except the baggage of acquired experiences, as well as the conquests of an intellectual and moral character that elevate the being and ennoble it...
Pride and
selfishness desensitize the being, make it hostile; these incapacitate it to
feel empathy towards his fellow men. An attitude towards life that generates
dissatisfaction and unease wherever it goes.
Suffering, however, bathes the proud, the despot, the aggressive with reality,
since it shows him, his vulnerability and fragility, softening the armor he
considered insurmountable, making him more sensitive, receptive to the
environment…
Love is still
today the great unknown of human beings in their current evolutionary journey.
Some progress has been made but…still far from the achievements that would be
desirable, where the ideal of love transformed into brotherhood and solidarity
was extended to all peoples.
Afflictions, therefore, fulfill the sacred mission of redirecting us, of restoring
the damaged or abandoned bridges that connected us with the Divine…
For this, it is
necessary to travel a long path of experiences, of tests, throughout the
different physical existences as a means to elevate ourselves; having to
overcome, in the current stage, the ancestral primitivism that still keeps us behind
and prevents us from advancing with a certain clarity and speed…
A clear sign of spiritual inferiority are the detrimental reactions that arise
when suffering and setbacks appear. These are the different stages of a process
that is not yet ripe to accept or assimilate, both in the small things and in
those of great importance for the human being.
Let us remember the five phases that Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross tells us about…that
she observed… after having spent many hours with terminal patients in hospitals
[applying it to our reactions towards our suffering]:
In the first place, denial, or inability to accept reality: “This
cannot be happening to me, it is not possible.”
Secondly, anger, or what is almost the same, the violent
rejection of the new situation: “I don't deserve this, I have many things to do
yet.”
Third, negotiation, that is, reviving spiritual beliefs, many
times dormant and forgotten until that moment, to [try to] agree to a graceful
way out of the situation.
In fourth place, depression, which is when the problem overflows
and shows the vulnerabilities of the being, and its inability to control it,
generating a fall in self-esteem and modifying the idealized perception that it
had of itself and its environment.
And finally, when a serene analysis of the situation has been made, after
having gone through the different stages mentioned above, that is when the final
acceptance arises.
Therefore, faced with the adverse circumstances of life, the human being must
learn to overcome them by putting all its own effort, but with acceptance,
since what happens is part of its learning, of the baggage of experiences that
is to allow it to grow exponentially.
On the contrary,
the only thing that rebellion achieves is to complicate and increase the burden
that is already heavy… wasting uselessly, the forces that could be harnessed to
compensate and grow.
Many times we talk about success, about people who manage to achieve the
greatest achievements, keeping the superficial, striking image; the tip of the
iceberg. But the gigantic part of struggles and sacrifices that the ocean hides
in private is ignored; of failures, of difficult situations that have been
overcome with great difficulty to achieve the desired goals.
However, do not be confused or deceived.
Acceptance does
not mean blind resignation, or the fanaticism of thinking that in the face of “God's
will, nothing can be done,” since the ultimate Will is not known, and that to
avoid this fatalistic circumstance, the human being was endowed with
discernment and of freewill, true levers of progress. Or, put another way:
suffering just for suffering, without putting in the means to avoid it, leads
nowhere…
For all this, and to conclude the purpose of life is progress, through uplifting
achievements, building in order to grow.
What happens is that the being is cyclically subjected to “internal reforms,” as if it were an old house that requires pending repairs, improvements that allow better habitability, so that it adapts to the needs that the inhabitant needs.
We are talking about the home, but the interior home, the psychological and transcendent one, the one [the spirt] that provides enough stability so that neither inclement weather nor external circumstances disturb it to the point of causing a total or partial collapse.
Finally, [the idea is to] transmute suffering into experiences rich in wisdom and values, allowing the being [the spirit] to grow, free itself from the dark past, and walk freely and unattached towards the light of understanding and of real peace; that peace which is the consequence of no negative obligations and of a clean conscience.
(Excerpts from article date 09/07/2020 from the website: www.amorpazycaridad.es by the Spiritist group - Assiociation of Spiritual Studies Group of Villena in Alicante, Spain – translated by Yvonne C. Limoges)
(Note: the final acceptance of our sufferings for not be dome grudgingly.
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Edited by Yvonne Crespo Limoges, Directo
E-mail: ylimoges@aol.com
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