Swami, how are we to avoid suffering? You are so focused on action that you don't realise that an action which is born out of ignorance is an extension of ignorance.
Hence, more than engaging in action, we have to enlighten our action with understanding. Understand that you are the creator of your suffering. This understanding will help you dissolve suffering.
An unhappy person in heaven will convert even heaven into hell; a happy person can convert hell into heaven. So, change is not required anywhere except within yourself.
If you have an unhappy mind, even if you are in heaven, you will 'stink'. So, to overcome suffering, you have to understand that your unhappy mind is the cause.
There are two types of sufferings. Legitimate and illegitimate. Legitimate suffering is sorrow that is proportionate to the situation.
For example, your loved one dies. This sorrow is valid. But if you continue worrying for more than one or two years, then there is a psychological aspect to it.
To handle legitimate sufferings, you should understand that such suffering is the result of your past deeds. Illegitimate suffering is suffering that is not proportionate to the situation.
For example, somebody calls you a fool. You brood over it for days on end. It is this suffering that one can end through right thinking.
When your suffering is due to karma, your past deeds, you have to understand that you are only repaying your debt. Many people had gathered in a village to listen to Lord Buddha.
Buddha did not start his sermon, but waited for someone to turn up. After a couple of hours, a young maidservant arrived and joined the gathering.
Then he began his sermon. Someone asked, "Why did you wait for her?" Lord Buddha said, "In my previous birth, I had promised her that after my enlightenment I would teach her. I had to wait for her so that I could fulfil my promise".
A man was very unhappy. His friend had not returned the money he had borrowed. One of my students told him, "Your money is deposited somewhere, and at the right time, it will return to you".
Such an understanding makes us surrender our sufferings to the mystery of life. Surrender is a leap from the ordinary to the sacred, from the logical to the cosmic.
Surrender is like opening the third eye... 'I am'. Surrender is real growth. Growth involves no suffering. Resistance to suffering creates suffering.
For example, if a stone is thrown on the wall, it makes a noise. But if a stone is thrown in empty space it just passes through.
A wall is like the ego. When somebody says something unpleasant and you have a wall of ego, you get hurt. If you are empty of ego, the word will just pass through without encountering any resistance.
Surrender is in the realisation that God gives me what I need more than what I want. Surrender is trust. Surrender is being open to life.
Very often we suffer because we are not open to the vastness of life. We are bound by our know-ledge. We are dead to something that is beyond our knowledge.
What we know is finite and what we do not know is infinite. To be alive and limited to what we know, and dead to what we do not know, is a deep cause for suffering.
By Swami Sukhabodhananda www.prasannatrust.org