If, then, the universe is maintained by ceaseless change and the opposition of opposites, the experience of happiness cannot be known without its opposite: unhappiness. If you had the perfect life as you would imagine it, you would eventually be restless, bored, and unhappy. It didn’t take much to get Adam and Eve to leave paradise, right?
Yogananda commented that the reason God doesn’t talk openly with most people is that they would just argue with Him. Send some people to heaven and they would make it hell.
As Adam and Eve bailed out of paradise, so do we do so with gusto. Indeed, by the time of puberty when we “wake up” from childhood, we are itching to experience the pleasures and gratifications of that the world invitingly offers (true, some are fearful of the prospect as well). As Swami Kriyananda put it in his landmark, now classic, text, “Art and Science of Raja Yoga,” “most people wouldn’t have it any other way!”
No matter what creation story you subscribe to, the basic fact is someone, or more likely, each of us, have made the same decision that Adam and Eve did. We opted out of paradise to explore the big world of personal choices. And we do this day in and day out.
In the ceaseless flux of change, therefore, cause and effect rule the universe. As God made a choice, so do we and, in our case, it has turned out to be a learning experience. Unless and until we take responsibility for our responses to the world of change in which we swim, we will never make useful, long-term choices.
The law of karma dictates that we are responsible for all that occurs to us, but I admit most people are not ready to accept this. For now, it is good enough that we accept our responsibility for how we respond. A devotee turns karma on its head and says that everything that happens to me is given to me by God for my own greater good. Is it karma or is it God? What matters in either case is our response. The devotee’s response lifts the challenge into a higher realm, a place from which, in time, with grace and with practice, we first accept and then even feel grateful for the tests that come.
No matter where suffering comes from, if there were no illness, old age, suffering, or death, we might never seek the Giver of Gifts and the Lover behind those gifts. Suffering is a prod to our soul’s pride. Suffering can prod us to go on a quest for the answers; for lasting happiness; for freedom from suffering; for the bliss (Satchidanandam) which IS God, our Father-Mother and IS our own true nature.
Even-mindedness is essential. Faith in the soul-awakening potential of meeting challenges head-on with calmness, courage and confidence is also essential. An inner life of prayer, meditation and outer life of joyful service and non-attachment is the anchor and foundation for staying centered “amidst the crash of breaking worlds.” Seeing success and failure as the hand of God guiding us to our own highest good leads to the possibility of endless waves of gratitude.
As Sri Krishna states in the Bhagavad Gita, “To you who have overcome the complaining spirit, I reveal to you wisdom sublime.”
Sister Gyanamata, a saint of wisdom and one of the most advanced disciples of Paramhansa Yogananda and one whose suffering led to her soul freedom said that suffering can be a pathway to (spiritual) greatness.
The Christian path has emphasized suffering as the pathway to God but as St. Francis de Sales put it, “A sad saint is a sad saint indeed.” The emphasis on suffering has become distorted. It’s one thing to accept suffering as it comes with equanimity and grace, but it is also equally important to seek to transcend it in the presence of God. It’s a both-and.
As a great Muslim saint, Rabiah said in response to those who questioned her deathbed suffering, “He is no true lover of God who does not forget his suffering in contemplation of the Divine Beloved.”
True saints go beyond focusing on suffering as the measure of sanctity. Instead, they seek the divine Presence and the bliss of the soul.