Today we honour the birth of another great master who lived more than 2500 years ago. Lord Buddha came and gave mankind a set of teachings way beyond what we understand. He did not touch on the subject of God. He did not mention God. He mentioned freedom, enlightenment, nirvana and he showed his people over time how to achieve nirvana. The mantra that is chanted “Om Mani Padme Hum” tells you of how to achieve “from impurity to purity”. For an impure mind, body and speech, how do you reach purity? Our own guru taught us, from an unenlightened being to an enlightened being, you have to shed your negatives, add positive, learn and correct. I am tying this with our own teachings. Of Lord Buddha himself, his passion was about suffering, because when he when out from his domain to see the world, he realized that there were a lot of sufferings. Today I shall touch on the subject of suffering.
Now if you look at suffering there are three areas of suffering. One is physical suffering, one is emotional suffering and the third is mental suffering. Now let us look at physical suffering. For physical suffering, you can go and see a doctor. You have aches and pain he gives you some medication and if you are not cured, he will give you a stronger one. Finally either you get cured or you die of the disease, no more suffering. Physical suffering is your own making, if you don’t take care of yourself, you will have problems. Sometimes you take care you will also have problems because its ordained that way because it’s meant to work out your karma. So physical suffering we can address.
Let’s look at emotional suffering. Emotional suffering is something that you cannot see. Mental suffering and emotional suffering are connected, very connected. Emotional suffering is what we are dealing with in our spiritual life. Jealousy and hate are very big boulders, with these big boulders it creates suffering because you compare. You see someone has something and you don’t have it you feel envious. You are interested in someone, someone else is seen talking to the person, you get jealous. Emotional suffering can be addressed if you are aware of it.
Hate is the biggest of all suffering as it eats you up. You may think it is OK to feel that hate towards someone but then again you bring that hate wherever you go, even to bed. The result is a build up of toxin your body without you realising it, end result some form of sickness.
Now look at mental suffering, this is where I would like to bring in Eckhart Tolle. We all like to live in the future, we worry, we fear, why? Because we create this mental picture in our mind of what if. What if, what if tomorrow I lose my job? What if tomorrow my child fails the exam and gets sacked from school? What if tomorrow I become broke? What if, what if, you should leave what if to what IS. If you address now and leave it to God, then you can forget about what if. They all teach you this, the path of surrender is the path in which you leave what if to Him. You are attending to now, our own Guru says “Learn from the past, let the present time be of right action, so that your future can be glorious.” Learn from the past He said past mistakes you learn. Past is past, you cannot change the past. Swami Himself has said “Past is buried in time. The future is in the womb of time.” “Let the present be of right action then your future can be glorious.” So suffering is something that we all go through. From the time we are born until the time we die, we go through suffering. How do you address suffering? This is where our teachings come in. You can continue to suffer all you want, emotionally, physically and mentally. You can continue to do this if you are not mindful of what we are telling you.
The last part of our mantra which is Hum, addresses for you to achieve it, you must have wisdom. Method and wisdom go together. Ignorance is the cause of suffering. Ignorance is the major cause of suffering because there is no wisdom. You think, you are not sure, you think this is it, you worry. So if you are in a situation where you are worrying sort of person then you have to address it. You have to look at it and said I am going to drop it. I am going to leave it to God. Wisdom is the applying what you know. So long as you do not apply what you know it is knowledge, useless. You can see the sun is shinning and say I had a sunburn. You can complain and you can take sun burn cream and say yes I got my sunburn cream, but if you don’t apply it then you get sunburn. The application is wisdom. Knowledge is the sunburn cream will prevent you from getting sunburn. Wisdom is applying it, then you don’t get burned, the result of knowledge. With wisdom comes freedom, suffering will still there, you will still suffer but your attitude and perception towards suffering changes. You don’t suffer any more, it is still there, you will get the pain but you thank God for it. “Luckily I have got small pain, I don’t have a big pain.” So you address it this way.
If financially you are OK, thank God for it. There are millions of poor people in this world who have less than you. Just be thankful for the little things you have and then you move on. But if you continue to focus on your lack, you will always be of lack. Even how little you have, be thankful for it. Even you don’t like your job, be thankful for it. That’s how you address suffering. Don’t suffer and say “Why must I to do this stupid work?
Change your attitude. Once you change your attitude, your entire mind set changes. Learn to love your job because that’s given to you by God. So suffering is there. There is no change but you love that aspect of suffering because you learn to address it. I end this talk by bringing you a quotation which Gopal gave many years ago. He says “Like little sheep they go to God, frightened by the thunder, drenched by the pouring rain, scorched by the burning sun, like little sheep go to God and then they find God. They are not frightened by the thunder any more. They are not scorched by the burning sun. They are not drenched by the pouring rain “. So what does this tell you? The burning sun is still there. The pouring rain is still there. The thunder is still there but you are not frightened anymore. So don’t ever think that in the spiritual line, once you earn it “I don’t have suffering anymore.” Forget it. Then you are in the wrong line. Because suffering will always be there from the time you are born until the time you die, it is how you look at it, how you address it, how you perceive it, how you eventually overcome it, that is the key. That is the key to overcome suffering.
Change your mindset. Change your attitude and then your life will be glorious. So what we are telling you today is told 2500 years ago. Lord Buddha says the same thing. He says life is suffering and I am teaching you guys, he says how to overcome suffering. He has made this mantra “Om Mani Padme Hum” into a six syllable. He says from an Impure mind, impure body, impure speech, how to reach purity. Like a lotus flower which grows in mud he says “Unaffected by mud.” Just like the jewel that gave richness to people who are poor. Just like Hum, it means the combination of method and wisdom will definitely lead you out of disillusion. There is no change. Don’t take it as change. Don’t take it that the world would change because of you. No. You will go through it but because you see it differently, you see people differently. You see problems differently. You see your work differently. You see your children differently. You see everything differently. You see the sun differently. You see things in a different light and then you will realize that life is beautiful.
So the choice is ours. Either we continue to suffer or we continue to suffer with God. Two things. So take what you can today because what I am trying to show you is what the all the Masters are teaching, there is no different only they package it differently, they present it differently for the different people on different century that’s all.
Comments are closed