Monstaville Book I. Chapter 24

24

"The burden of suffering seems to be a tombstone hung around our necks. Yet in reality it is simply the weight necessary to hold the diver down while he is searching for pearls."

- Julius Richter.

“Living beings fear the results, not the causes from which they come but Bodhisattvas fear the causes, not the results. Bodhisattvas are extremely careful not to plant the causes of suffering. They endure their present suffering gladly. So Bodhisattvas, too, must sometimes suffer, but they do so willingly, knowing that

Enduring suffering ends suffering

Enjoying blessings destroys blessings.

...If you fear suffering you should not plant the causes of suffering, for if you do, you will certainly reap its bitter fruit...Born in the land of Ultimate Bliss, one endures no suffering but enjoys every bliss...‘Oh, I’m suffering too bitterly,’ you say, but you suffer because previously you planted the causes of suffering.”

- Tripitaka Master Hua (A General Explanation of the Buddha Speaks of Amitäbha Sütra, Sino-American Buddhist Association, Inc., CA, U.S., 1974, p.30).

“A bodhisattva is someone who has compassion within himself or herself and who is able to make another person smile or help someone suffer less. Every one of us is capable of this.” - Thich Nhat Hanh.

Caine (David Carradine): Did you give them cause to laugh?

Huntoon (Michael Greene): Well, I didn’t mean to.

Caine: Perhaps you gave them cause to fear.

Huntoon: I’m dumb and I can’t figure people but I’m big enough to make ‘em stop laughing at me if I can catch ‘em.

Caine: If you plant rice, rice will grow. If you plant fear, fear will grow.

                - Kung Fu (Season 1, Episode 9, ‘Chains’, 1973).

"I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches. If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise, since everyone suffers. To suffering must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love, openness, and the willingness to remain vulnerable." - Joseph Addison.

"Christ was willing to suffer and be despised, and darest thou complain of anything?" - Thomas à Kempis (Erm, yeah, but he was a very advanced soul. He showed us our potential for love, healing power, forbearance and immortality).

"Pain narrows vision. The most private of sensations, it forces us to think of ourselves and little else." - Phillip Yancey. (Pain concentrates us, locks our focus into time, so it appears that this is all there is).

(Quotations from www.suffering.net/buildch.htm).

AGrief is natural to the mortal world and is always about you; pleasure is a guest and visits by thy invitation; use well thy mind and sorrow shall be passed behind you; be prudent and the visits of joy shall remain long with you.@ - Ancient Khemetic proverb (Egyptian).

“Life is suffering. Once you learn to accept that life is suffering, life will cease to be suffering.” - Sidhartha Gatauma Buddha (563-483 B.C.)

“Suffering is not holding you. You are holding suffering. When you become good at the art of letting sufferings go, then you’ll come to realise how unnecessary it was to drag those burdens along with you. You’ll see that no one other than you was responsible. The truth is that existence wants your life to become a festival.” - Buddhist Teaching.

Osho

“Remember, one who enjoys more is bound to suffer more because he becomes very sensitive. But suffering is not bad. If you understand it rightly, suffering is a cleansing. If you understand it rightly, sadness has a depth to it which no happiness can ever have. A person who is simply happy is always superficial. A person who has not known sorrow and has not known sadness, has not known the depths. He has not touched the bottom of his being; he has remained just on the periphery. One has to move within these two banks. Within these two banks flows the river.”

“Each suffering should be started in celebration. Then you change the quality of suffering itself. Each suffering should be welcomed through celebration; then the suffering is no more suffering.”

“Suffering is there. It is part of life and part of growth; nothing is bad in it. Suffering becomes evil only when it is simply destructive and not creative at all; suffering becomes bad only when you suffer and nothing is gained out of it. But I am telling you the divine can be gained through suffering; then it becomes creative. Darkness is beautiful if the dawn is coming out of it soon; darkness is dangerous if it is endless, leads to no dawn, simply continues and continues and you go on moving in a rut, in a vicious circle. This is what is happening to you. Just to escape from one suffering you create another; then to escape from another, another. And this goes on and on and all those sufferings which you have not lived are waiting for you. You have escaped but you escape from one suffering to another, because a mind which was creating a suffering will create another. So you can escape from this suffering to that, but suffering will be there because your mind is the creative force. Accept the suffering and pass through it; don’t escape. This is a totally different dimension to work in. Suffering is there: encounter it, go through it. Fear will be there, accept it. You will tremble, so tremble. Why create a facade that you don’t tremble, that you are not afraid? If you are a coward, accept it.”

“Opposites are complementaries. If you can suffer your suffering in totality, in great intensity, you will be surprised: Saul becomes Paul. You will not be able to believe it when it happens for the first time, that your own suffering absorbed willingly, welcomingly, becomes a great blessing. The same energy that becomes hate becomes love, the same energy that becomes pain becomes pleasure, the same energy that becomes suffering becomes bliss.”

“Use every opportunity in life for raising your intelligence, your consciousness. Ordinarily what we are doing is using every opportunity to create a hell for ourselves. Only you suffer, and because of your suffering, you make others suffer. And when so many people are living together, and if they all create suffering for each other, it goes on multiplying. That’s how the whole world has become a hell. It can be instantly changed. Just the basic thing has to be understood, that without intelligence there is no heaven.”

“If you really want to get rid of misery and suffering then you will have to understand - you don’t have a self. Then it will be not just a small relief but a tremendous relief. And if you don’t have a self, the need for the other disappears. It was the need of the unreal self to go on being nourished by the other. You don’t need the other. And listen carefully: when you don’t need the other, you can love. And that love will not bring misery. Going beyond needs, demands, desires, love becomes a very soft sharing, a great understanding. When you understand yourself, that very day you have understood the whole of humanity. Then nobody can make you miserable. You know that they are suffering from an unreal self, and they are throwing their misery on anybody who is close by. Your love will make you capable of helping the person you love to get rid of the self.”

(Quotations from  www.oshoquotes.net/category/osho-quotes-on-suffering).

“Remember, one who enjoys more is bound to suffer more because he becomes very sensitive. But suffering is not bad. If you understand it rightly, suffering is a cleansing. If you understand it rightly, sadness has a depth to it which no happiness can ever have. A person who is simply happy is always superficial. A person who has not known sorrow and has not known sadness, has not known the depths. He has not touched the bottom of his being; he has remained just on the periphery. One has to move within these two banks. Within these two banks flows the river.” – Osho.

Nisargadatta Maharaj: The world is but the surface of the mind and the mind is infinite. What we call thoughts are just ripples in the mind. When the mind is quiet it reflects reality. When it is motionless through and through, it dissolves and only reality remains. This reality is so concrete, so actual, so much more tangible than mind and matter, that compared to it even diamond is soft like butter. This overwhelming actuality makes the world dreamlike, misty, irrelevant.
Questioner: This world, with so much suffering in it, how can you see it as irrelevant. What callousness!
Nisargadatta Maharaj: It is you who is callous, not me. If your world is so full of suffering, do something about it; don't add to it through greed or indolence. I am not bound by your dreamlike world. In my world the seeds of suffering, desire and fear are not sown and suffering does not grow. My world is free from opposites, of mutually distinctive discrepancies; harmony pervades; its peace is rocklike; this peace and silence are my body.

- From I Am That. Talks with Nisargadatta Maharaj (edited by Sudhakar S. Dikshit, chapter 94, 'You are Beyond Space and Time.' Amazon’s synopsis of this book states that, “The sage's sole concern was with human suffering and the ending of suffering. It was his mission to guide the individual to an understanding of his true nature and the timelessness of being.”).

Perhaps you must be bigger than your problems, your circumstances. So, having so many nasty problems (and karmically induced) puts pressure on you to be more of yourself, more whole, to meet the challenge.

30 June 2002.

“Bear the Cross cheerfully and it will bear you.” – Thomas à Kempis.

Suffer the misery inflicted on you by your neighbours gladly and gratefully. Try not to be affected as that is also a spiritual test and lesson. But, be patient and tolerant, rise above the negativity. Be glad and grateful that this is an opportunity to clear karma. If not in this way it would be in another - and perhaps until you stop reacting like a mortal and start rising above circumstances like an immortal who knows Reality.

“No man is hurt but by himself.” - Diogenes.

What to do about Pigsy [Dragon Insights card, Shi, master, teacher, skilled person, army, model, example to others].

Being self-disciplined and not reacting to him brings spiritual merit and trust to teach.

“A skilled, innovative and well-liked general conducts military training and campaigns with an army of 2,500 men. He is ready to lead the army into battle. The army is well-organised and well-trained. The general is well-informed about the enemy and full of surprise tactics....success...requires planned, innovative strategies and...new, fresh tactics. Take a different, unanticipated tack...don’t follow the usual route.”

“These new innovative strategies need to be well-planned and rehearsed before they are used. Military-type order brings success. Be like a general ready to lead an army into battle; as well informed, well-trained and organised as possible before proceeding. Then stay in the midst of events; an active participant, directing the movement.” (That is, no fisticuffs until, or unless, you’ve trained to use combat methods well).

“Retreat now and then [to] replenish your energies. There is a reservoir of power and strength within you...”

(Dragon Insights. A Simple Approach to the I Ching by Jillian Lawler, Simon & Shuster, East Roseville, NS, Australia, 2001, p.33-34).

If you are patient, a solution (strategy) will eventually reveal itself. Noise harassment: I eventually discovered ear plugs. Shower harassment: I eventually realised that I can have strip washes and baths at the weekends, which is no trouble, and can even put the shower on as a bluff, which also affects the pressure of Pigsy’s hot water, I assume. It’s not terribly often he gets a chance to do that anyway really.

“Live your daily life in a way that you never lose yourself. When you are carried away with your worries, fears, cravings, anger, and desire, you run away from yourself and you lose yourself. The practice is always to go back to oneself.” - Thich Nhat Hanh.

“And once we have the condition of peace and joy in us, we can afford to be in any situation. Even in the situation of hell, we will be able to contribute our peace and serenity. The most important thing is for each of us to have some freedom in our hearts.” - Thich Nhat Hanh.

“Use your time wisely. Every moment produce beautiful thoughts, loving, kindness, forgiveness. Say beautiful things, inspire, forgive, act physically to protect and help.” - Thich Nhat Hanh.

Retrospective inserts.

“The collective consciousness of humanity is striving to acknowledge the extreme duality that permeates the Earth. Each and every person, at some level, is fighting the battle to attain self-awareness, which must include embracing both the Light and shadow side of Self while endeavouring to return to an accepted range of duality and polarity. Each of you must recognise and claim your shadow side, your demons within, so that they, too, may embrace the Light of transformation. Human suffering is the result of rigid thinking, a sense of superiority and judgment of others, which leads to separation rather than unity and tolerance for opposing viewpoints. Can you accept the premise that your negative thought forms are also seeking release? They are rising to the surface of your consciousness, seeking illumination and truth, just as you are. You must take responsibility for what you create, moment to moment. Negative thoughts and actions result in distorted creations and chaos.” - Archangel Michael (channelled through Ronna Herman, ‘The Many Facets of Ascension,’ 29 December 2008, www.ronnastar.com).

“A negative emotion is an alarm bell revealing that there is attachment to some story in time happening. If resentment, sadness, guilt, or shame arises, notice that a story of past is happening. If anxiety or fear arises, notice that thought is telling a story of future. When anger or frustration arises, notice that there is a story of resistance to now happening (e.g., the driver in front of you is not doing what you want her to do).

                Awakening presents the opportunity to see that these stories are arising now. You aren’t actually visiting the past or future. There is simply thinking arising in timelessness. Suffering is an illusion of thought.

                Liberation is not about removing emotions or thoughts. It is not about destroying the ego. Only ego would seek to destroy ego. Liberation is about seeing how attachment to these stories in time creates suffering.

                In seeing that this thought life is keeping a dualistic, time-bound, self-centred story alive, the possibility of liberation from suffering arises. In that seeing, attachment to these stories and their accompanying emotions dissolves on its own.

                Liberation is not about replacing the negative stories and emotions with positive ones. It is about seeing what is actually happening in 'your' mental and emotional world. Peace, love, and joy arise in that seeing. These attributes of peace, love, and joy exist beyond dualistic emotions.” - Scott Kiloby (excerpt from 'Reflections of the One Life,' www.kiloby.com).

"I have only two rules which I regard as principles of conduct. The first is: Have no rules. The second is: Be independent of the opinion of others." - Albert Einstein.

Characteristics of the duality game. (From The New Earth by Jeshua, channelled through Pamela Kribbe, www.jeshua.net).

“1) Your emotional life is essentially unstable.

There is no emotional anchor present, since you are always in the ‘up’ or ‘down’ side of a particular mood. You are angry or forgiving, narrow-minded or generous, depressed or enthusiastic, happy or sad. Your emotions perpetually fluctuate between extremes. You seem to have only limited control over these fluctuations...

2) You are intensely involved with the outer world.

It is very important to you how other people judge you. Your self-esteem depends on what the outer world (society or your loved ones) mirrors back to you about who you are. You are trying to live up to their standards of right and wrong. You are doing your very best.

3) You have strong opinions about what’s good and what’s bad.

Being judgmental gives you a sense of security. Life is so well organised when one divides actions, thoughts or people into right and wrong.

                Common to all these characteristics is that in all you do or feel, you are not really there. Your consciousness resides in the outer layers of your being where it is driven by fear-oriented patterns of thought and behaviour.

                Let us give an example. If you’re used to being nice and agreeable all the time, you are displaying a pattern of behaviour that does not spring from your inner being. You are in fact suppressing signals from the inner part of you. You are trying to live up to someone else’s expectations in order not to lose their love, admiration or care. You are reacting from fear. You are limiting yourself in your expression. The part of you that is not expressed will however live a hidden life of its own, creating dissatisfaction and tiredness in your being. There may be anger and irritation present in you which no one is aware of, not even you!

                The way out of this state of self-denial is to make contact with the suppressed and hidden parts within you. Making contact with the suppressed and hidden parts within you is not difficult in the sense that it requires particular skills or knowledge to do so. Don’t make ‘going within’ a difficult process that others have to teach you or do for you. You can do it yourself and you will find your own ways of doing it. Motive and intent are far more important than skills and methods.

                If you really intend to know yourself, if you are determined to go deep within and change the fearful thoughts and emotions that block your way to a happy and fulfilled life, you will do it through any method that comes along. Having said that, we’d like to offer one simple meditation which may help you get in touch with your emotions.

Meditation

Take a moment to relax the muscles in your shoulders and neck, sit straight up and put your feet flat on the floor. Take a deep breath.

                Picture yourself walking on a country road under a wide open blue sky. You take in the sounds of nature and you feel the wind through your hair. You are free and happy. Further down the road, you suddenly see some children running toward you. They are getting closer to you.

                How does your heart respond to this sight?

                Then the children are in front of you...How many are they? How do they look? Are they boys, girls or both?

                You say hello to all of them. Tell them how happy you are to see them. Then you make contact with one child in particular who is looking you in the eye. She or he has a message for you. It is written in the child’s eyes. Can you read it? What does it want to tell you? It is bringing you an energy that you need right now. Name the energy that this Inner Child has come to bring you and don’t judge it. Simply thank her or him and then release the image.

                Feel the earth firmly under your feet again and breathe deeply for a while. You have just contacted a hidden part of yourself.

                You can go back to this scene anytime you want and perhaps talk to the other children there as well. By going within and making contact with the hidden, suppressed parts of yourself, you are becoming more present. Your consciousness is rising above the fear-motivated patterns of thought and behaviour that you have taken for granted for such a long time. It is taking responsibility for itself. It takes care of the sorrow, anger and hurt inside, like a parent takes care of its children...”

‘Worlds In Transition’ by Daniel Jacob (2006, extract from an article on www.reconnections.net/worlds_in_transition.htm).

Those who cannot live or move from a place compassion, sense, and sensibility exist now to awaken those who can. They are alarm clocks for humanity.

Wake up, world! It's time to wake up!

Extremes, when expressed in any area of life will naturally call forth their opposites, in order to bring balance to the equation. That is the nature of the Reconnection Universe. Those who are reading this piece at this moment have found their way here. What you do with this information (and what it does to you in turn) will be a product of your own choosing and design.

                In the Book of Genesis of the Bible, God looked upon His Creation and said: ‘It is good.’ Not long after that, evil appeared on the scene. It did so by divine invocation, and conscious design. To take delight in one ‘child’ of creation is to automatically resurrect its brother to say: ‘Hey! What About Me?’ After all, 3D is about duality, is it not? Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, Israel and Ishmael.

                Most who know the Story of Abraham, out of which the Middle East conflict flows, can recognise the ‘What About Me?’ question in everything that is going on at this time. The children of Abraham are having a battle over the reading of their father's will, and the rest of the world is helping with the probate process. Certain forces (which wish to remain nameless) are aligning with one side or the other, so that ‘War by Proxy’ can be played out in the Holy Land.........(or should I say ‘Wholly Land,’ since the issues at the centre of these conflicts belong to all). But really, friends, ALL war is ‘by proxy’ since everyone who sees the carnage must own it, as part of our Shadow Work, or it continues to metastasise throughout the Planetary Body until we do.

If you trust and follow your heart, and if you trust life and surrender to your Higher Self, your true and whole Self, perhaps your inner happiness will lead you to be doing something that brings joy or to not be there when the attack is launched.

It is all, it seems, a matter of perception which evolves through overcoming inertia, making an effort to understand, grow and resolve issues harmoniously, becoming more enlightened as-it-were. I have been learning to define and interpret these experiences from different angles, from lower to higher, from stress, despair, fear and aggression to wise, joyful, loving and assertive power. A broad spectrum of responses culminating in greater inner peace and confidence, feeling more love and arriving at deeper insights than the level of comprehension that results from being on automatic pilot, as a result of inner work. I have also realised just how much the past (tension and blockages both from this lifetime and past lives) affects our present experience of life.

‘Life is Meaningless’ by Bashar (channelled through Darryl Anka, www.bashar.org, from a YouTube video posted by letsawake, 8 January 2009).

“When people say you create your own reality, it’s a matter of your thought, your beliefs, your behaviours, your feelings. This is really just a layman’s way of expressing energy physics. Again, what you put out is what you get back. Consciousness is what creates your experience. There is no real, empirical outer reality. The only thing that is, shall we say, real is your experience of it.” – Bashar.

…acting on your joy whenever it might show itself, acting on your passion at every opportunity, is what will also strengthen your ability to move forward in that direction, because passion, excitement, joy, love, that sensation in the body, that excitement in the body, that sense of balance and peace in the body, is the body’s physical translation of the vibratory frequency that represents your true, natural or original Self, or the Self you were actually created by Creation to be. So, any time you act on your passion you are then making a statement, a commitment, to be harmoniously aligned with your true, natural, core vibration. And, when you are thus functioning and staying in a state of being that is representative of your true, natural, core vibration, then the universe is capable of supporting anything that is representative of that true, natural, core vibration. But, when you buy into belief systems that are out of alignment, out of phase, with your natural Self and thus feel the energy of fear, doubt, hate and so forth, judgement in that negative sense and so forth, then the universe can only support what vibration you are giving off. And, if you are giving off a vibration of being out of alignment, it can only then present to you opportunities to continue to be out of alignment. Because what you say goes. That is why you were given free will. You are the absolute and ultimate determiner of what kind of reality experience you have.

We have often said also that one of the greatest gifts that you have been given by Creation – and we know this will sound funny at first in your language but bear with us – one of the greatest gifts you have been given by Creation is that life is meaningless. What we mean by that is this: nothing, no situation and no circumstance actually has built-in meaning. It’s neutral, devoid of meaning. It’s a prop. But the meaning you give it automatically – unconsciously or consciously – the meaning you assign, the definition you assign, to any given neutral situation is exactly what determines the effect you will get out of that situation. All situations are fundamentally neutral and can serve double duty. They can create, for you, a negative or positive reflection. That is solely determined by what energy vibration and attitude and belief system and definition you assign to that situation.

So, no matter what anyone else’s intention in any given circumstance might be toward you, if you assign only a positive meaning to that given, same circumstance and situation, then you will only receive a positive effect out of that circumstance no matter what anyone else experiences.

“If you're not getting along with your mate, you’re not getting along with your employer, you’re own physical body is sick, you don't have enough money, people are not treating you right, there is not one negative thing that you are experiencing that is happening for any other reason other than you are not appreciating yourself.

When you are critical of somebody else it’s not about them. It's about you. When you are condemning the world, whether it is the political world or the religious world or the economic world or the ecological world...When you are looking at the flaws in the world, it is not about the world, it is about you! It is about the way you feel about you.

And so we say, friends, nothing is more important than that you establish your own relationship with you. It is our promise to you that your Inner Being adores you but you close the door when you think thoughts of lack about yourself.”

- Extract from tape AB-20. Self Appreciation of the Abraham Hicks Special Subjects Set Volume II (part 1) by Esther and Jerry Hicks (Abraham-Hicks Publications, March 2008).

"To hear God's Voice, all you need do is ask, ‘Do I want Peace or do I want suffering?’ If your answer is Peace, you have already heard God's Voice within you." - David Paul and Candace Doyle (6 May 2009, www.thevoiceforlove.com).

“Take out your aggression in laughter.” - Ken Dodd.