No simple solution to suffering except sharing
If anyone gives any simple solution to complicated human problem it always surprises me. For example suffering is a big subject in life. From time in memorial so many philosophers tried to address this problem to find some solution to it. However when one reads them she might get some interesting information about it. But when she is actually facing the suffering most of the time those information never provide any solution or even give any respite to her. So when I read the following one such information about handling suffering instead of accepting it I began to ask some question.
…When we are unhappy we tend to stay wrapped in the emotional layer, holding on to the idea that ‘I am the suffere’. If we can stand apart and watch the unhappy thoughts as s disinterested witness, the thought pattern changes from ‘I am unhappy’ to ‘these are unhappy thoughts’. The fact is that I can observe my body, I can also observe my emotions and ideas. One disassociates the ‘I’ from the unhappiness because one has shifted one’s identification from the sufferer to the witness of the sufferer.
How long will the thoughts remain unhappy without the cooperation of ‘I’? It is the mind that suffers, not I. The ‘I’ has become a witenss. There is a strange happiness even in watching our unhappy minds. One need not try and remove those thoughts, one should just watch them without classifying them as good or bad and let them come out of our subconscious, just as fizz comes out of a soda bottle when the cap is released.— The Mind’s Conquest of Pain & Suffering Anjali Singh, p. 91
Well she has a point in analyzing the problem of suffering by dividing human faculty as ‘mind’, ‘I’, ‘body etc. In fact I have tried this method when I had some suffering in my body. When I cut my finger or burnt or got severe stomach pain or head ache, if nothing works, then I will lay down and began to trace those pain and how it begins, grows and spread etc. Then soon my mind began to overcome it. However there are various kinds of suffering in life. Most of the time we suffer not in body but in our mind. That time the same trick never helps much—at least to me. Particularly when I get physical pain because of my mistake or due to some accident because of others mistake I can try to work this trick. But when I suffer in my mind because of the problem not created by me, then most of the time nothing works. The best solution is to seek others help at least sharing it with them—though they cannot find any solution or in a position to help us.
This is one important part in our life as HUMAN as SOCIAL animal. Most of our sufferings come because of our relationship with others. And the solution also should come only through the same relationship—either from the person who is the cause of our suffering or someone else who can understand and help us. Merely analyzing the problem and try to find the solution through this so called ‘I’ as if it can stand alone separated from body, mind, buddhi and atman to remain merely a witness is mere ideal. Technical terms can help us to articulate our thought but they cannot provide the solution. For example, ‘…The Indian philosophical tradition attributes perception to the mind, conceptualisation to the intelelct and illumination to the self….’ says Anant G Nadkarni [Learn to Let God, Adapt to Change, The Best of Speaking Tree, p. 86]. Well Nadkarni might be correct in this or our Indian philosophical tradition correctly divided our psychic in these terms like ‘mind, ‘intellect’ and ‘self’. But for me there is some truth in the reversal. We know certain technical terms in English like ‘perception’ ‘conception’ and ‘illumination’ etc. Then in order to understand those technical terms we attribute them to each of the faculty again in English words like ‘mind’ intellect’ etc. In fact the way human psyche is analyzed by using various technical terms in various traditions in various languages is very complicated one. I read somewhere that in Greek tradition ‘kidney’ is the seat of emotion not heart. Similarly Jews literature used others terms to understand human psyche. For example when the Psalm says ‘bless the Lord of my soul’ it actually means ‘blessed the Lord oh my soul, mind, heart and body’ as they never divided human psyche as it was done in other traditions. Similarly Indian philosophy also divided suffering in various categories. About this Matilal says:
…The first is called duhkha–duhkha under which all ordinarily unpleasant things and unhappy mental states are classified. The second group consists of what would ordinarily be known as pleasant objects and happy feelings. They are to be judged as duhkha because they change and decay and do not stay long enough to impart happiness…. The third type of duhkha is called samskaara–duhkha, a more pervasive and abstract type of unhappiness….— The Collected Essays of Bimal Krishna Matilal: Ethics and Epics, ed. Jonardon Ganeri, New Delhi, Oxford, 2002, p. 369
Similarly there is another category [which I cannot document now] called like ‘adyatmika’[caused by oneself] adibowthika’ [caused by other] and ‘adidaivika’.[caused by god]
Finally, recently I shared my problem with the Lord in song 1263. And Dr. Hoefer’s comment helped me to approach this problem in a different way by saying, ‘I view God’s relationship with us as having an on-going vision for our life, changing as we make decisions.’ This answer I got because I shared my problem with someone else. So I find the best solution to handle human suffering: SHARING. Rest of the analyses using various technical terms will help us to get some information and learn certain technical terms not more than this.
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