On suffering

"...It is a mistake, however, to pity ourselves on account of this suffering, because it is through suffering that we learn and grow. ... "Then glorify it!" That is the point. Since it is suffering that teaches us the truth and turns us toward God, why do we not thank and praise it for the work it does for us?


So beginning at the very first, if anything happened that disappointed me or caused me pain, instantly my soul asked, ‘What did you come here for? Was it honour, distinction, favours, or pleasure?’ As promptly the answer came:

"No. For God. For God alone."

I was thinking of something that was coming into my life that filled me with apprehension. I knew that is was not the will of God that I should be saved from the experience. Even at that moment it was moving towards me. Suddenly God told me the prayer He would listen to, and I said quickly:

"Change no circumstances of my life. Change me."

Keep yourself in a positive state of mind constantly, and fill your mind with thoughts of God. Act as you do when you want to make a dark room light. You do not fight with the darkness. You simply bring in the light, and the darkness is dispelled.

When you [Paramahansa Yogananda] visited Ramana Maharshi in South India, in order to draw him out you put to him several questions, one of which was, ‘Why so much suffering?’ He replied by asking,

"What suffers?"

It is the self, the ego.

If it did not suffer, would it not grow very strong and powerful? And if I do not die to self, how can I live in God?

There is no pain, nor sense of disappointment, frustration, or failure that has not its roots in desire. Put this to the test, and you will see for yourself.

1. See nothing, look at nothing but your goal, ever shining before you.

2. The things that happened to us do not matter; what we become through them does.

3. Each day, accept everything as coming to you from God.

4. At night, give everything back into His hands.

"Pilate saith unto Him, what is Truth?"* Many there are who put this question. Much time is spent in searching for the ultimate Truth. And yet the blessed fact is: It is ever present with us. It is not here nor there. It is not the exclusive property of any person. It is universal like air and light, and like air and light it does not have to be searched for. As air and light stream into a house through the open windows, so if the windows of the soul are thrown open, Truth will flow in and illumine the man according to his ability to recognize and receive it.*John 18:38

I often think how strange it is that I should have had to come into a Hindu organization in order to understand the meaning and value of Christian teachings. Probably the outstanding Christian teaching concerns the value and necessity of suffering: that without being thrown into a fiery furnace of suffering, we do not attain to union with God. On the contrary, the Hindu teaches that man makes his escape, discovers his own divinity, through the bliss of meditation. Since I have lived and served at Mt. Washington and the Hermitage, these two seemingly contradictory teachings have revealed themselves to me as parts of a whole. Fitted together they form a complete picture of the path man must tread on his upward march.

Lord Jesus said: "Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour." As with him, so with us; how can we expect to escape that which we were born to endure? John 12:27