There are very different ways of the divine. When we surrender to the divine, we pass through many experiences. I often wondered as to why Ramana Maharishi and Ramakrishna Paramhansa had cancer. Why Rama had to go to the forest for 14 years along with his wife and brother. Why Krishna was away from his parents and his parents had to suffer in jail for so many years. I feel that probably the meaning of suffering and pain in the normal world and the spiritual world are quite different.
We suffer for the lack of pleasure. Our body, in a healthy state, gives us pleasure. However, when we have an illness, or have an accident, or have some chronic disease, we feel pain. Pain is a mechanism of the body to draw our attention so that we can give more attention to the organs that are suffering and the body may again get back to a healthy state. Similarly, we suffer from psychological pains. We form different mental habits like having food of a particular taste, living with certain individuals, lifestyle of a particular type, social validations, respect in society, and an image of ourselves that we carry along with ourselves. All these things constitute the psychological self. Just like the physical body, whenever we develop apprehension of losing any of these comforts, we feel psychological pain. Each psychological pain has underlying sensations and therefore physical pain too follows the physiological pain.
Spirituality is all about the realization of the temporariness of all the forms: both physical and mental. That is the reason why all these sufferings carry a very different meaning in the world of spirituality. When Ramana Maharishi is one with reality, he can see the temporariness of his pain and can get his hand operated on without anesthesia. Ramaksihna could stay in a state of bliss even in the severest of pain. Rama stayed blissful in the forest in the absence of all the comforts of the palace. Krishna could immediately change the course of his life as soon as he came to know about his parents. He took no time to leave the comforts of Brij and the company of his friends to move on with his life mission.
Is it so that Ramana, Ramakrishna, Rama, and Krishna did not suffer? They all suffered definitely. After all the body and mind have a definite nature. It resists change. Everybody will have pain whenever we have diseases in our bodies. Any and every mind will resist the change when we get a comfortable life. However, what matters is our response to this pain. A spiritual person will accept these pains and examine them as a witness and grow in the process while a person who is fixated on the matter and mind will see these sufferings as a great challenge to his existence and will resist the change and stay limited. This is because the second one has tied his existence in and around the matter and mind. His life revolves around the pursuit of the pleasures that make his body and mind comfortable. On the other hand, the life of the first one revolves around the divine, and all the forms are the manifestation of the divine. Even life and death are just intermittent events in the great continuum.
However, as we move along the spiritual path, both movements continue in our existence. Whenever there is suffering, we resist as well as flow with the same. We resist because of the old habit patterns and flow with the changes by getting strength from the divine. There is a constant tussle going on between the two. Sometimes our fear wins the battle and sometimes our faith wins the battle. That decides our growth. The divine is so kind that if the fear wins the battle, he will not leave us and will bring the fear or suffering in our lives in a different form and we again will have to pass through the conflict. The egotist and arrogant have no conflicts because they have decided to be limited. The path of spirituality is full of conflicts and every time we get a conflict, we have an option to grow or to be limited. In order to grow, we will have to witness suffering. The act of witnessing sets us free of the fixation and attachment to the underlying comfort and habit pattern.
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