Saturday 7 October 2017

The ultimate reason for suffering is to prevent us being comfortable in error


The world, this world, was created and is sustained for our spiritual progression (yours and mine, and everyone else's); for us to experience, learn and grow towards a more God-like consciousness.

If we do not acknowledge this fact, or if we live in opposition to the nature of reality, then we will suffer. And we will continue to suffer - because this world is made for theosis.

Suffering is not the same as striving. Our life in this world is for spiritual striving. Our nature and capacity is (in its original potential) suited-to a state of striving and spiritual progression - much more so that they are to choices of stasis, reversal, decline, corruption, inversion... all of which cause us to suffer.

Much of the existential angst and alienation of Life is due to us living at odds with the designed-nature of reality - by us trying to live wrongly; usually by our failure to strive for spiritual progression, with what that entails.


The painting is by William Arkle, and the above ideas are drawn from page 81 of William Arkle's A Geography of Consciousness, 1974.


1 comment:

Chiu ChunLing said...

Unfortunately, God also suffers, and being "long-suffering" is one of the great virtues.

Reality, and the other people in it, do not always conform to our desires. To be aware of this in some degree is to suffer, to be more aware is to suffer more.

If we are free, truly informed and acting to bring about the best (from our perspective) possible (in reality) consequences of our own behavior, then we will suffer less from our own errors. But we will suffer more from the errors of others, even though it is in no wise correct to say that we are in those errors.

And there are limits to what we can do to prevent the errors of others without falling into the gravest error of all.