The key to escape suffering

Suffering is an unavoidable aspect of life. But here's a metaphor that can help you to deal with suffering.

We are luminous beings. The perfect part of ourselves cannot suffer, it is only the imperfect part that is suffering. It's like gold: its impurities will burn (thus causing the suffering) but the gold itself is not affected by fire.

Eckhart Tolle says that for most people, suffering is their only spiritual teacher. This teacher is most present when the suffering is most intense.

However, the presence of this teacher does not guarantee that the student will learn. Indeed, the student who experiences intense pain might decide to run out of the "classroom" altogether.

But in such cases, what happens is that a bigger lesson will pursue the student and catch up with him and make him experience a deeper pain, one he cannot easily escape from.

You might wonder, "Peter, this is a blog about success secrets, why are we talking about suffering? Isn't success about AVOIDING suffering?"

I would not say "avoiding." I would say that one should accept, embrace and then transcend suffering.

How?

Through a spiritual understanding of the situation and, in fact, of one's entire life.

A friend often told me, "Everything happens for a reason." I would clarify further by saying that "everything happens for our evolvement."

Concretely, this means that whatever pain or suffering you are currently encountering in your life, they are there for your evolution. Trying to avoid your pain or suffering will only make it come BACK again, but with more strength and aggressivity.

The pain can be caused by people, especially close ones like family or friends. Or it can be caused by a particular situation (a job you hate, etc.).

But ultimately, you are the cause of your pain and suffering. That's because it is HOW you interpret a situation, in YOUR mind, that results in the emotions you feel in your body.

The key to transcend suffering, therefore, is to grow in awareness and rise ABOVE your mind and its thoughts.

The more you identify with your mind, the stronger your ego will be. And the ego is very negative and seeks a negative interpretation of everything. The ego is very defensive and very vulnerable. It will react to people and situations in a very unconscious manner, leading to more pain and suffering for all involved.

If, for any reason, you feel fear or anger, you know that it is your ego that is presently in control. Not your awareness, which is higher.

The ego, especially for men (and I'm guilty as charged!), is not easy to control. The world has evolved in a way that somehow rewards the ego, through material possessions (or obsessions?) like big houses, cars, status, priviledge, celebrity, etc.

There's nothing wrong with houses, cars, status, priviledge and celebrity, IF one does not identify with them.

Yesterday, I was watching the movie Batman - The Dark Knight when I had this insight: Society is structured to serve the male ego.

In other words, the more expression a man gives to his male ego, the more he will rise in the world. Of course, his progress in the world has little to do with his personal, spiritual progress.

Why is society serving the male ego? Because the male ego created society as we know it.

So rather than say that "it's a man's world," I would say that "it's a male ego's world."

Women are less tempted to let their ego rule their lives, for the simple reason that women "live in their bodies while men live in their heads."

I don't know why this is so. Perhaps because women experience, every month, the menstrual cycle which, in a way, forces them to "feel" what their body is going through.

The fact remains that I've met hundreds of women, and I'm surprised that I haven't seen any female ego in action. This is why I resonate with the statement I read a while ago, "men display their knowledge while women share their knowledge."

Another way to put it is that women are peer-oriented while men are pyramid-oriented: they seek to gain superiority over other men.

Once again, I must say that I'm guilty as charged!

But as I've discovered in my own life, by trying to control my ego and rising above its unconscious reactions to people, events and situations, I gain power.

Rather than reacting, I respond -- with full awareness.

"Respond", to me, means "rest & ponder." In other words, I "freeze" my mind and keep it at rest when confronted with negative people or emotions. And then I ponder on the appropriate response, from a place of deeper and higher awareness.

The more I practice this exercise, the more I understand what Seneca wrote centuries ago: "Powerful is the man who has himself within his control."

So if we get back to the subject of this post -- suffering -- we realize that suffering and pain offer opportunities to develop our power.

The power to transcend the unconscious reactions of the vulnerable and defensive ego, so that we can reach a place of tremendous serenity and power, where unlimited creativity lies.

Once a person can access this place of infinite creativity, success is virtually guaranteed even though -- paradoxically enough -- it is not obsessively pursued the way the ego usually does.