Theos-Talk Archives (April 1996 Message tl01134)

1996 has been a year of karma in my face, demanding to be repaid now, with
Snidely Whiplash twirling his greasy moustache at the foreclosed note due etc.

And it has forced me to examine ideas I have often heard, but never experienced
the truth of such as

1) suffering is a tool for spiritual growth
2) suffering is good for you-it teaches lessons we have choosen for ourselves
this incarnation
3) suffering is necessary as the shadow of good
4) people can expedite debts by willingly learning to accept suffering with
grace.
5) suffering leads to transcendence
6) willingly helping  the suffering of others is the true test of spiritual
advancement
7) suffering in itself is a karmic repayment
8) suffering can bring people together and get to the truth the way celebration
rarely does

I am still struggling with most of these.  I am not a Catholic, if fact I was
taught that nuns, for example, were crazy self-deluded masochists.  And that
flails were symbolic of spiritual narcissism, as if God was pleased by one's
individual pathological expression of penance.  But when I search in books read
and reread, I seem to find things I failed to see before, for example, that
self-expression is not the goal of life, but the willingness to accept the
seemingly unacceptable, that is the unfairness and absurdity of suffering as
part of the world process of which I am only a limited, but  involved
participant and not an aloof critical spectator.

I feel conected to the idea (whether it is true or not) that in a past life I
was either a Catholic nun or Zen monk.  I have been deeply resentful that if
life has so many unfortunate accidents, why religion seems to exalt suffering,
renunciation, humility, poverty unto sickness as a requitement for the spiritual
path.  Perhaps this is why I was attracted at some level to the occult, which
seems to covertly imply the oppostite, that is, that spiritual "ideas",
prosperity thinking, Depak Chorpaisms  etc will give you spiritual success which
can't help but lead to "like attracts like", perfect health, eternal body/mind
and two new cars.

The Buddhist doctrine of the wheel of karma as desire leading to the suffering
of unfullfiled desires as the nature of human consciousness leads to the desire
to escape into nirvana.  To hold back to help others as the Nirmankaya vestiture
blows out the difference between Nirvana and Samsara to a unity awareness.
World Service seems not to depend so much on special knowledge, but attitude.
World Servers can be the ordinary people who provide the link unconsciously to
the goodness behind suffering: that is health professionals, doctors, ministers
and on down to the levels of cook and office cleaner.

I am beginning to think that intellectual analysis is necessary, but actually
lies midway on the spiritual path.  It lies actually on the lower mental plane
although it often claims to have acces to the higher mental through contact with
inspiration from the buddhic or atmic planes ( a lot of wishful thinking
sometimes, don't you think?).

I have been synchronistically reintroduced indirectly and through my own
conscious and unconscious processes (dreamwork) to the notion of the World
Server.  Many like Eldon reiterate the thesophical goal or a Brotherhood of
Humanity.  Is a political system necessary for this?  Are we in collusion with
some dark tyranical movement that wants to reduce the freedom of the individual
in the name of world peace as many so-called kooks would suggest. The goal is
not the brotherhood of humanity, but the more humble nucleus of a brotherhood of
humanity.  This modest goal is perhaps all we can achieve at this point in the
evolution of humanity.    How many have been called to the path by suffering
more than by complacency, boredom or simple curiosity?  Until the Buddha stepped
out of the palace and Christ out of the carpenter's shop spirituality was
superfulous to the enjoyment and struggles of life.  Suffering was the
initiation fee, so to speak.

Namaste
Keith Price