Yesterday I was having a walk in the evening trying to deal with some unpleasant memories that had arisen. And the question naturally came to me – Why do people suffer?
This is an age old question and mankind has asked it of himself throughout history. Here is Osho’s answer to it. It is not really an answer, it is more of a response. And these few paragraphs are quite enough to give direction to the rest of our lives:
From the most ancient days, man has asked again and again why there is suffering in life. If God is the father, then why is there so much suffering? If God is love and God is compassion, then why does existence suffer? And there has not been a satisfactory answer to it. But if you understand Jesus you will understand the answer. Man suffers because there is no other way to mature, to grow. Man suffers because only through suffering can he become more aware. And awareness is the key.
Observe your own life: whenever you are comfortable, at ease, happy, awareness is lost. Then you live in a sort of sleep, then you live as if hypnotized, you live as if in a sleepwalk; you move and do things—but somnambulistically. That’s why, whenever there is no suffering, religion disappears from your life. Then you never go to the temple, it carries no sense for you; then you don’t pray to God, because why? There seems to be no reason.
Whenever there is suffering you move towards the temple, your eyes move towards God, your heart moves towards prayer. There is something hidden in suffering which makes you more aware who you are, why you are, where you are going. In a moment of suffering your awareness is intense.
Nothing can be meaningless in this world. It is a cosmos, it is not a chaos. You may not be able to understand—that’s another thing—because you know only fragments, you don’t know the whole. Your experience of life is just as if you have only one tattered page of a novel: you read it but it makes no sense because it is just a small fragment, you don’t know the whole story. Once you know the whole story, then this page will become comprehensible, then this page becomes coherent, meaningful.
What is meaning? Meaning means to know the fragment in relation to the whole; meaning is a relationship of the fragment to the whole …
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This message of this passage is similar to the teaching of the book of Job in the Old Testament.
Eckhart Tolle also makes a distinction between our life and our life situation. What is our life situation:
What’s the difference? Your life situation exists in time. It is mind stuff. Your life is now and is everything real.
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So stop worrying about your life situation and just live your life. According to Osho you will not be able to make sense our find meaning in your life situation in any case. Nobody can know the meaning of the entire novel when they have access only to one tattered page. So trust in God and just live your life instead of forming intellectual theories about it.
I am an intellectual sort of person and I find it difficult to stop thinking. So this teaching is definitely meant for me. You may find that the same is true of you as well. As Eckhart Tolle says: unless you have found the off button of your mind you are not the master of it.
And it is essential for you to be able to not identify with the mind if you are to live in the present.
Buddhist mindfulness techniques might help you to deal with the nonstop train of your thoughts so that you can live in the present moment. Try the books of the Vietnamese monk, Thich Nhat Hanh.
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