Suffering

I don't think I have to tell you - but I'll strengthen the idea - that there's nothing in the universe, not one thing, that doesn't have meaning. I can look out the window on a gorgeous Spring day here in Southern Oregon and see all the bounty, the burgeoning green - it has a meaning that words can't give to it but that the experience itself delivers...

Useless suffering can't be separated from useless resistance. The more you resist something, the more you suffer, believing that somehow or other your resistance to what you don't want to do (or be) is going to separate you or liberate you from the thing you don't want. Resistance is an unconscious form of attention, and the more attention you give to something you don't want, the more of it you get.

There is an unseen source of daily suffering that is the constant companion of humanity. It is in one respect one of the great driving forces behind the darkness that encompasses this planet -- the unremitting wars, the violence, the greed, the fear, the desperation -- all the things we see in the world around us...

In this answer to a viewer's question, "letting go" author Guy Finley talks about how we have to be willing to see that the very part of us that resists any unwanted moment is complicit in its continuation.

In this answer to a viewer's question, Guy talks about how we suffer uselessly every time we attempt to be seen as someone special, which is the same as avoiding awareness of ourselves as we are.

The attempt to "save" ourselves -- to rescue and release the troubled "me" -- without first understanding just who and what this nature is that would save itself from its suffering, is the first real threshold over which the sincere aspirant must pass... since the presumption on the part of the seeker here is that he or she knows what's wrong with their life...

One of the reasons that you live with the pain that you do is because you don't understand that you don't have to. And the only way you're ever going to shake off that pain -- get off "the pain train" - is if you start to get fighting mad about what is making you the kind of human being that you are. I don't know if you can see it. I hope that you can. As a race of beings, we have become...

Growing into the worlds above us - realizing the higher realms of consciousness within us -- requires that we outgrow the worlds beneath us. This is the great model, the matrix of reality, as it is reflected from above to below. There are no exceptions to or exemptions from its rule or purpose. Any appearance to the contrary is just that, and whenever we break this rule ...

If we are truthful about our life experience though, it is obvious that as long as we believe we have something to lose because of our identification with any temporary exterior condition or circumstance, we remain subject to every outer condition.

Behind every bitter disappointment lives the presence of a sweet light whose power can turn any unwanted event into a new kind of victory not yet imagined.

The root of our suffering isn't because of outer conditions but because of a misunderstanding of our existence and its purpose. Everything in nature that suffers does so for a purpose and cause greater than the individual creatures, while human suffering serves the self that creates it so it can be glorified.

Following are five ways in which your awareness of the power of now can transform each challenging life experience (or memory) into a new and true beginning for you.