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Thread: Suffering?

  1. #1
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    Suffering?

    Namaste,
    I have been wondering about this for a few weeks now...thought to share and get your comments.

    Does God 'know' about or is aware of or can experience suffering, pain, darkness? If God is all good and infinite, beyond good and evil, I suspect he has no clue about 'suffering'. If he has no clue about suffering, he cannot possibly understand anyone's prayers asking him to eliminate their suffering.

    Since he can't experience pain and suffering, he cannot be empathatic to jiva i.e. he cannot relate to our suffering and pain that we experience in this world. No?

    What do you think?
    satay

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    Re: Suffering?

    Namast,

    My first reaction to your phrasing was to beware ever assuming that God 'cannot' do anything.

    Is it important, though, that God empathize with our pain or that he know how it feels? It's almost greater if God has no idea and helps us anyway - if he is beyond all of this and yet still reaches out to us to help us transcend it. It is like a man who rescues a drowning person from a river and then vanishes; he did not need to know how it felt to drown to know that pulling a victim from the water was the right thing to do, a deed that needed no thanks or credit.

    And must pain and suffering be experienced to be empathized with? A doctor who helps a woman through childbirth surely knows the suffering he witnesses - intellectually if not through his own direct experience - but he also has the certain knowledge that it is temporary. He knows that if he is strong, pure-minded and firm, he may help the woman endure the suffering and, through it, experience a new and wonderful joy.

    Just a few ruminations on this interesting question you've raised.

    Indraneela
    ===
    Oṁ Indrāya Namaḥ.
    Oṁ Namaḥ Śivāya.

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    Re: Suffering?

    As I think about it, this is indeed the HARD problem of religion ~ why does an omni-benevolent/scient/potent God allow evil/suffering in the world? Christianity/Islam have come up with many theodicies to explain this but many fall short.

    To summarize the Abrahamic position on this (before addressing the Hindu position as I understand it): What we humans perceive as evil is actually good according to some divine standard we humans are unaware of. Abrahamics also do not allow reincarnation to allow evil and justice to play itself out over multiple lives. If Christians saw Hitler in heaven, they will probably be dumbstruck and suffer from unimaginable levels of cognitive dissonance about their non-comprehensibility of their own God. By what standard of justice could Hitler have made it to heaven?

    The Hindu position on this as I understand it:

    (1)AFAIK, the Vedas/Upanishads do not mention an omnibenevolent Brahman. So, the problem of evil doesnt apply to Brahman. I could be wrong here and would appreciate correction if I am. Possibly, the Bhakti schools of thought do perceive Brahman to be omnibenevolent.
    (2)According to Advaita, there is no such thing as evil or good. Pure consciousness is beyond all these subjective notions. What is good according to one human is bad according to another.
    (3)Karma/souls/Brahman/Prakriti have been eternally existing in cycles of creation and dissolution. So, Brahman did NOT create evil. Evil has been eternally existing. The Karma created from good and evil have been playing out since eternity and one cannot blame Brahman for having created the "first" evil because in an infinite eternal set of cycles, there never was a "first" cycle.

  4. #4
    nitinsharma Guest

    Re: Suffering?

    Sometimes,I get really pi**ed off thinking about such things,only one answer comes to mind:
    God Hates Us All.

    Later I come back to my senses,realize:
    If only we knew.......
    Last edited by nitinsharma; 22 July 2011 at 02:49 AM.

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    Re: Suffering?

    namasté

    Our awareness and senses are like an arrow pointed outwards towards the world.

    O -----> world

    When all is going well in the world our awareness and senses remain focused outwards on our bodily pleasure, people, enjoyable events, food, fun, friends, health etc.

    O ------> :-)

    But when suffering enters in the world, such as our body is in pain, or we see people suffer, or the enjoyable events turn sour then we become aware of our self and our mind starts to look "inwards" to itself for answers.

    O <<-------> :-(

    At this point the arrow of awareness begins to reflect back on its source and we begin to think of "God" and the reason for existence; why our pleasure can turn to pain. The source has always been "God", in that as divine existence it has never changed.

    It is only when awareness starts looking inward that we find that "God" knew both our suffering and our pleasure all along and we have never been separated.

    All doubt about "God" arises whilst awareness is turned outward towards the world and we 'forget' our true nature. Some say this is why suffering exists, so that it turns us to "God".

    The more we turn towards "God" the more we will come to know that "God" is there always, never changing, like a silent parent who watches the children learn from their follies of play. Sooner or later life gives us a hard knock, and like a child we remember to turn and seek comfort in "God's" embrace.

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    Re: Suffering?

    Namaste Satay,

    Quote Originally Posted by satay View Post
    Does God 'know' about or is aware of or can experience suffering, pain, darkness? If God is all good and infinite, beyond good and evil, I suspect he has no clue about 'suffering'. If he has no clue about suffering, he cannot possibly understand anyone's prayers asking him to eliminate their suffering.

    Since he can't experience pain and suffering, he cannot be empathatic to jiva i.e. he cannot relate to our suffering and pain that we experience in this world. No?
    The God is the third state of Brahman which is undifferentiated mass of consciousness. This state is the origin and end of all beings (in the first two states) and this state is the Lord of all beings. This state is blissful ... it enjoys bliss from its mouth of consciousness.

    Therefore, being undifferentiated mass of consciousness ... it has to be omniscient & aware of everything whatever is happening to us. The problem in understanding this theory is that we try to bring the concept of God as some sort of being that we have seen or have thought. God which can be really imagined cannot be God at all because we are trying to bring the Infinite into something finite ... because we cannot think of anything which can be really an Infinite undifferentiated mass of Consciousness which also has the mind which is trying to conceptualise God. It is like a drop of water in the Ocean is trying to conceptualise the whole of the Ocean with all its majesty. The Ocean very well know what it means being an individual water-drop.

    So, have no doubt. God knows very well our intensity of sufferings and there is a law of Karma which has to work it out ... but God is not limited to boundaries of Laws of Karmas ... His grace can alleviate the sufferings caused by our own Karma and can even take us out of this dreaded cycles of joys and pains. But do we see God ? We are so much obsessed with our sufferings to have our mind fixed on God !

    OM
    "Om Namo Bhagvate Vaasudevaye"

  7. #7

    Re: Suffering?

    Namast&#233; Satay, All

    I think that God feels at most the pain of all.

    After all what is pain? Friction against growth no matter what the scale.

    Gravity?

    Whether a galaxy a whirlpool or a repetitive thought or action. Can you imagine having the growing pains of the whole of Brahman to contend with?

    Pain exists on every level it is from this that we grow. Joy is the natural counter without which vRtti would not turn.

    There is <3 something rather special at its centre.


    Aum shri ganeshaya namah.


    Mana
    Last edited by Mana; 22 July 2011 at 07:19 AM. Reason: <3

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    Re: Suffering?

    Already every goodly post has been made above and I doubt this will even be necessary with such full answers, but here goes<3

    My mother always say my one true gift was to be able to feel another's pain or feelings. I can always do this with others, to put myself in their shoes. But Beloved is some Big Shoes!

    But from this incarnation and my experience with my own Beloved Children I say yes....He is We...each of us giving back a full picture of existence to Beloved.

    But more than this, Beloved sees something we can not because we are not yet realized to be who We really are....He sees We are always fine...no suffering really happening.

    As a child who had a bad dream and we come to them and say....shhh it is just a bad dream Beloved One...please do not worry.

    Lastnight my son almost die on his meal, eat a huge lump of roll....he swallowed and turned blue....and in that moment I grab his rigid body up and thrust him till the roll popped out half chewed. As his face turned back pink he reach for me and began to cry...such a hug I never receive from my child before...one of complete surrender. Made me also cry.

    A near fire in our microwave due to a malfunctioning microwave popcorn topped our day off.

    (I was told of some transit in Saturn yesterday...and all day bad things tried to happen. But I just wouldn't let it. I have also been told my Saturn is ridiculously high and that it actually acts like a benefic so perhaps this is why I was there to put all the fires out yesterday.)

    Through all of this Beloved watched through me and the other Beloved Portions I have the honor of serving...and through it all the drama play out...

    But from Beloved's side....all of this doesn't look so dangerous or severe because through this all...even if my own son had died in my arms....We are still absolutely 100&#37; whole and well.


    Whenever in my life bad things happen...I put my hand out and say...Beloved I am in Your Beloved Hand...and I give this to you. I withdrawl from the reaction I once had.

    We can not be truly harmed ever!

    As a strong parent Beloved allows this drama to unfold, as He know this so fully...

    I do feel if it become too much, and we begin to withdrawl...this is an indication to Him that we no longer wish to be a part of this experience.

    I think this only happen when we have burned our karma sufficiently that the Truth can begin to unfold...

    Sometimes I do say..."Beloved I know this seem okay from your side...but from this side it is pretty crappy...and if you truly wanted to experience what being isolated is...well then I think we already got the situation fully understood."

    But, as a mother may say ..."do not go into the street" and the child does not understand the why so they think the situation is less than ideal to not have this ease of situation...But the older child understands and even repeat this rule because they know the cause of such things. I do concede to all things I experience. Knowing that there is always a good reason and I trust Beloved to keep those rules until I am able to fully understand.

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    Re: Suffering?

    Namaste Satay,

    The two birds in Naya Surya's post explain very clearly answers to all your questions, from advaitin as well as Dvait POV. I will wait for Yajvanji or Atanuji or Ganesh Prasadji to answer your question as they are very good in explaining with profound knowledge of scriptures.

    Rgds

    Ekoham
    Jo sahaj hai, saral hai, wohi satya hai!

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    Re: Suffering?

    Vannakkam: What is suffering? I tend to lean towards it being varying degrees of the SCHOOL of hard knocks.

    On the God side, I believe Siva knows, but its part of himself, the Dance.

    Aum Namasivaya

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