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SUFFERING - a doorway to TRANSFORMATION

Have you been wanting to change some aspects of your life, tried different things and failed? If yes, then you probably need to connect to a more powerful emotion that will help make a lasting change in your life. The emotion is disgust. 


Yes you rightly heard, it's disgust. What does it mean? Generally we think of disgust in a negative sense. But when channelized properly, disgust can lead to genuine transformation. What disgust means is, we don't  make the necessary changes in our lives until we are deeply sick of suffering, fed up of pain and a life of mediocrity. This is when you reach a point of no return. There's no looking back after that. You are completely transformed. We can call this day, the "That's it" day or "Enough is enough" day or "Ever since" day. Call it whatever you may like, but this is the day one strongly feels, "I am not going to live like this anymore".

That's why it is said - We don't change because we see the light, we change when we feel the heat. This is precisely the reason that even though we hear so many lectures, read so many books still we continue our old habits. No transformation. Because we haven't yet felt the heat.

That's the reason, the times of intense suffering become our greatest teachers, our doorway to transformation if we can see and acknowledge them with this perspective.

One of the stories that comes to mind is that of a prostitute called Pingala. This is an interesting story of transformation which is told personally by Lord Krishna in the Srimad Bhagvatam. It's a simple story but highlights to us how such a sinful lady became a great soul in just a moment.

The Bhagvatam mentions how one night, Pingala was standing at the doorway studying every man passing by, hoping that someone will come to satisfy her and pay her a good amount. But the night passed without anyone coming to enjoy with her. She became completely disappointed, feeling miserable, sick to the core. This was the "That's it" moment of her life. Suddenly the thought struck her "I am thinking, I am enjoying but in actuality I am suffering." This one realisation that sprang from her heart, completely transformed her to a great saint.

It's not that Pingala was enjoying the other days and on this day she suffered. She was suffering every day but in her illusion she considered her suffering to be pleasure. She didn't fully connect to her pain.

We do the same mistake as Pingala. We consider suffering to be pleasure.  We consider base emotions such as lust, anger, envy and greed, which actually makes us suffer to be a source of pleasure. We don't see these for what they are. We don't see them as destroying our peace of mind. That's because we not fully aware of our suffering, we want to escape the experience of pain, we don't want to acknowledge it. You may ask why? Because then we need to accept that "I need to change my ways, I need to give up old habits and my cherished anarthas. I need to destroy this building of illusion and built a new one based on truth."

Believe it or not, we prefer a familiar illusion along with its suffering to an unknown truth. Somewhere on the subconscious level we love suffering. That may sound crazy. But that's a fact. So much of our identity is connected to our sufferings, we feel that if all sufferings are taken away from us we will not exist.

There's a story of a man who lived in slums his entire life. One day he won a lottery and became a billionaire. He relocated himself to a magnificent mansion in a posh area. But this person wouldn't get sleep in this mansion. After pondering for a few days he found out the reason and the solution. The reason was that he was so used to the loud sound of the slums in the background during his sleep, that he went there recorded the raw slum sound and played it in his mansion during his sleep.

In someway this is our story. We love suffering because at least it's familiar. To embrace peace is challenging because we are not used to it. Just because illusion is comfortable, it doesn't make it a truth & just because truth is uncomfortable it doesn't make it an illusion. Change is always scary. Only the bold and brave can embrace positive changes in their life. Only those willing to leave comfortable shores can discover new lands.

The choice is ours. Familiar illusion and it's accompanied suffering or unknown truth and it's accompanied peace.

- Achyut Gopal Das

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