There is a great deal of misery and anxiety occupying peoples’ minds these days about the suffering currently undergone on the planet through terrorism, local armed conflicts, starvation, disease and economic depression. Many atheists and agnostics base their skepticism about the existence of God on the observation that a benign and benevolent God of Love could not possibly exist, or else he would not permit so much world suffering.

According to sages, the highest teachings of the world religions are contained in the idea that we are all “One” and that we come from the same divine source to which many names can be given. Sri Ramana used to say that, “God is the actual form of love”. So why then so much suffering in the world?  From the standpoint of our own teaching, that of the great Sage, Sri Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi, we must first understand that this plane of existence must be seen as a field of karma in which the plan for human evolution is embedded.

As the Bhagavad Gita, and Ramana Maharshi point out, men and women are born into this planet with karma or destiny preordained by Iswara or Almighty God, for their own spiritual development. This was stated to Paul Brunton in his dialogue with Ramana and is fully recorded in the Book, Conscious Immortality.

Nobody actually dies in reality. Lord Krishna told Arjuna, “Do not grieve!” After an interval of rest, the soul or jiva is reborn into a new life, again chosen from its latent tendencies, accumulated in previous lives, for his or her spiritual growth. This cycle continues until as a result of meritorious deeds they are, then through Grace, eventually brought to this teaching which in due course will lead them to Self Realisation. Then the whole karmic scheme collapses and nature of God as Love is realized.

Sri Ramana’s point of view is well and fully expressed in a long answer given in Talks No. 272 on October 23rd, 1936. Also David Godman’s excellent anthology, Be As You Are has a long Chapter, No.20., entitled 'Suffering and Mortality', and a further chapter called 'Karma, Destiny and Free Will', with all the appropriate answers to this unnecessarily vexatious question. For those who are troubled by the problem of world suffering they would do well to read this material. Briefly Bhagavan states that from a higher perspective the question concerning the triad of world, God and individual should be seen as inventions of the mind. From a lower perspective, instead of worrying about the world, we should allow ‘He who created it to look after it’.

If this is accepted then the sufferings which people endure are benign in the sense that this is their preordained karma for the soul’s spiritual development. Bhagavan once said that all suffering leads to God Realisation. Nobility of soul and very many virtues are only born out of suffering. This samsara which is a time of purgation and purification uses suffering to bring its children back to true values rather than linger in the hedonism of a decadent and corrupt culture. As Hafiz wrote:

Never the greatest man that yet was born
Has plucked a rose so soft it has no thorn.

We live in a world based on the law of polar opposites, which we have to surmount. There has always been suffering on the planet. The suffering endured in the two great world wars makes contemporary suffering almost infinitesimal in comparison. At the same time we must never be hard hearted and indifferent to any suffering, and always act with compassion. As Bhagavan taught, if suffering comes our way, and in our path, we must do our utmost to relieve it. The jnani is all compassionate, not only to human beings but to animals and plants as well. The greatest help we can bring to humanity is our own Self Realisation which mitigates world suffering both amongst believers and the faithless.

The question is often asked, “How do I deal with suffering when it happens?” Primarily one must ‘accept’ that whatever it is, ultimately it is all for the best. The human mind cannot understand the Higher Wisdom. With this form of surrender, one gradually perceives the lesson that we were meant to learn from our suffering. Every day living is full of stress, anxiety, loss and disappointment. After the acceptance to which I have referred, we must hand over the whole burden of our life to God or the Sat Guru in our heart as an act of surrender. Then he carries our burden, and all our cares are his.

Ultimately we must accept that everything which happens from galaxy to atom does not move without the permission of the Divine Will. Who are we with our petty egotistic humanoid perception, based on personal pleasurable satisfaction, to question the actions of the Master of the Universe, which are beyond our intelligence to  even remotely fathom?

'Oh Mind, do not waste your life in roaming outside, pursuing wonders and wallowing in enjoyments. To know the Self through grace and to abide in this way firmly in the Heart is alone worthwhile.' [1]

This relevant quotation leads us to consider that what we term ‘mind’ can be conceived as a great paradox. From one standpoint it is a benevolent friend but from another it is a malicious enemy.

As a good friend our mind is indispensable in the life-long task of navigating through the hazardous world dream of life. The mind contains great power of Intellectual Discrimination and Reason. This is a benign adjunct and vital for our Sadhana (spiritual practice) to progress.

Bhagavan, terms the mind ‘a wondrous power in the Self' [2], and states that our thoughts issue, from the thought ‘I’, from this source, and that it rises in the Heart [3].

This leads one to the conclusion that our destiny is largely controlled by the different thoughts sent to us. In effect we are like puppets on a string, controlled by a benign inner ruler who ultimately predetermines our spiritual development leading us to Self Realisation.

Some thoughts we deem to be appropriate and so we act. Some thoughts we reject as inappropriate and unworthy. When we do not react to thoughts but remain in awareness, they lose their hold on us. The mind purified of the identification with the thoughts merges in its Source, in the Heart, and thus the thought free state of the Self is recognized within.

It is a Vedantic aphorism that ‘all the buds on the almond tree will eventually open, but some will open sooner and some later’. This is obviously on a very long time scale from our human point of view, based on our ignorance. Through our spiritual practice we eventually become convinced we are not the ‘doers’ of actions’, as we mistakenly believed.

The mind as an enemy, however, is synonymous with the maligned term ‘ego’ and our main obstacle to Self Realisation. The mind, contains the adjunct of the brain, or organ of cognition, which creates the maya, or illusion, for the personal dream to happen in.

Built into the organ of cognition are the perceptions of space, time and cause and effect which create the stage for the limited sensory apparatus to operate and the personal dream to take place.

The mind is also packed full of harmful tendencies, and accumulated useless influences, that obscure the Real Self, and eventually have to be sacrificed in an act of total surrender, to the Real Self in the Heart, for Self Realisation to happen. Then the purified part of the mind will continue as a servant, no longer the tyrannical Master. The entire perspective has changed. A perceptual shift has taken place and the substratum of all that is perceived is known to be Divine and a Unity.

As Sri Bhagavan has made plain, through earnest persistent Self Enquiry and Surrender we come to realise as he says: 'The mind turned inwards is the Self; turned outwards, it becomes the ego and all the world' [4], and is in fact the Self! This crucial statement highlights the great paradox of the mind. Now let us examine its nature.

Bhagavan often tells us that ‘the mind is only a bundle of thoughts’ [5]. This can be confirmed by self observation when we watch our minds rapidly flitting from one branch of thought to another, leading to what Shankara and other sages have termed the ‘monkey mind’.

This ‘monkey mind’ is governed by the tendency to associate one event with another, through memory and its conditioned response. Self observation shows that the mind consists of umpteen fragmented small I’s, which make up the umbrella term the ‘I-thought’. Each separate ‘I’ has been conditioned to produce a laid down response or role, to be played out in any given situation.

There does not appear to be any central entity there, we can term I, but only this large collection of different small I’s, with their own voices. The Real I or Self is heavily veiled by this mind stuff. The root of this psychosis is the identification of the mind with the physical body . This is the Arch Vasana which persistent, earnest, Self Enquiry and Surrender has to remove.

The mind creates a mirrorisation which means we are living from a stepped down impure reflected Consciousness, and not the Absolute Pure Consciousness-Awareness of the Jnani or Real Self. We also split our perceptions into an imaginary subject we call ‘me’ and an object out there, instead of seeing a non-dual unity.

Under the play of the three gunas and the Law of Polarities, or play of the opposites, the emotional content of these petty I’s or thoughts, are continuously changing. more or less out of our control, and somewhat chaotic. The emotional pendulum swings between elation and depression, until we learn some equanimity through our spiritual practice.

There are even strong contradictions which are unobserved and break out into expressing our dislike, when we are unaware that we have the same tendency in ourselves, and therefore project it onto others. No wonder Bhagavan termed the mind as ‘wandering and perverted’, and the main obstacle to Self Realisation.

In Chan Buddhism, the mind is similarly termed ‘the Slayer of the Real’. Bhagavan has also told us that the mind is a tyrant that will never kill itself, and only pretends, like the thief who dresses up as a policeman to catch himself. So the mind is inherently hypocritical.

Consequently, through spiritual practice we learn the necessity of mind control if our sadhana is to progress. Bhagavan teaches us that watching the flow of breath quietens and controls the mind. The use of mantra japa also halts the wandering mind in its tracks like the chain around the wild elephant. Self Enquiry brings the errant thought back into its source.

Ultimately Grace is needed to destroy the mind. It acts in response to the intelligent part of the mind’s own efforts of Self Enquiry and Surrender. The mind cannot judge its own progress in sadhana, and has to continue relentlessly until Grace delivers the final blow and the mind topples, then to lead us to what is paradoxically called the ‘no mind state’.

In the ‘no mind state’ which is living from the Self, and not from the wandering perverted mind, which now has been rendered harmless as Bhagavan says ‘like a burnt out rope’ or ‘the moon in the sky at mid-day’. The Self, we discover, contains great powers of deep silence, unconditional love, clarity, awareness and the Gnosis of Jnana. Such is the glorious gift of this great Teaching which if earnestly practiced will one day, in this or some other lifetime, lead to this promised, blessed blissful state.

Footnotes

1. Padamalai, P. 137 from 8 ‘The Mind And its Creations.’

2. Who Am I? 8. Coll. Wks. 2004

3. Who Am I? 9 Coll.Wks 2004

4. Day by Day, Jan 11 1946

5. Talks 195.