Realization – What are the risks?
What brings people to the path? For most, it’s suffering and a desire to end the suffering, but that desire is at the root of the suffering. How can one end suffering by suffering.? I suppose the answer to that is enlightenment, but if the suffering ceases, then obviously the desire does too, so what’s left – enlightenment, realization? Sounds great! Sign me up! Are there any risks?
Perhaps there should be a warning label – Safety Not Guaranteed.
After all, isn’t an ego death involved?
As you see, the understanding and resolution of suffering is not simple. It involves a fundamental transformation, a transformation that does not mean going from unhappy to happy. Understanding suffering requires transformations that we ordinarily don’t think about and that our minds can’t easily conceptualize. The causes of our suffering are so intrinsic to how we live that once we recognize them, we can no longer believe that it is unfair that we suffer. How else could it be? Suffering is simply a symptom of incomplete knowledge. Suffering is a symptom of lack of realization, lack of complete awareness. We experience lack of awareness, of realization, and of knowledge as suffering. As we begin to understand this, our attitude toward suffering changes: it is no longer something bad happening. We realize that there is simply something that we don’t understand, that remains to be seen. Our suffering is a symptom, a sign coming from our nature, which is the deepest guide. Our suffering beckons us closer to the truth, shows us the way to peace. Through our suffering, our true self tells us that there is more to realize. Our suffering is connected with our guidance, and it’s better not to try to silence it. The only approach to suffering is to understand it. Suffering is silenced in the final silence, in the Absolute. – Diamond Heart Book Five: Inexhaustible Mystery
I didn’t come to the spiritual journey through a longing to escape suffering. In fact, the spiritual journey came to me. It only took about .1826 nanoseconds before the Wheel of Samsara incorporated my interest, efforts, and ambitions involving enlightenment and realization. Ah, the suffering – so sweet, so subtle… I mean after all – we are our suffering and who really wants to get rid of their suffering?
Our suffering is so ingrained into our identity that they are, in fact, the same thing. And the amount of energy we invest every moment (waking or not) into perpetuating the suffering/identity is really beyond our comprehension.
Of course, our surface suffering, the stuff we think we can do something about, is only the teeniest tip of a very deep system of dreams and disappointments that keep us buying the National Enquirer, People Magazines, and watching TMZ.
You know, it’s just this little thing – we want to be around to enjoy the enlightenment, to lead the enlightened life we imagine – and that, my dear, is the rub – Safety is not guaranteed for that one. The price for God is surrendering the life of desire/suffering.