My understanding is that from the Absolute perspective everything is perfect. There is harmony in the whole. But, to claim that there is a state on earth where no harm comes to individuals, or that there is no suffering, seems a fantasy. Heaven on earth is to take one's perspective as the Absolute. I know perfection, but it does not preclude suffering on the relative level.
4 comments:
Thanks for posting this. Too many collapse one into the other, but there a mystery to the chasm of Absolute and relative. While the Absolute enfolds the relative, most are contained from it.
Thanks for picking up my drift and commenting. Yes, there is mystery and there is a veil between the Absolute and the relative. Enlightenment does reduce suffering for the jiva,
as the identify has shifted to the Absolute, but the relative is still in appearance, and a number of the great sages suffered. An enlightened being with a broken leg is going to suffer, though he knows that his real Self is unperturbed.
Thanks for your clarity around this. I have often thought this very thing and I appreciate your words. I had become confused about whether the reason I sometimes experience suffering is because I didn't have sufficient understanding to see the biggest picture (at which point, in the fantasy, all distinctions would magically melt away).
I think there is subtle toxicity in the view that at a certain point of 'advancement' there is no suffering, because it implies that anyone who suffers is somehow lesser than someone who doesn't, and that they are not 'there' yet. In writing this I can now claim my experience: sometimes I suffer and sometimes I don't, and drop the need for it to be different.
Yes, there is a lack of clarity in the spiritual world. For example, when a sage says "I do not suffer," he is speaking from the Absolute view. That is his primary viewpoint, and it is valid to say that. However, the individual appearance of the sage may suffer mentally, and has aches and pains like everyone else.
Having said that, the sage may in fact suffer somewhat less because he has some distance from the bodymind, having recognized his true Self. There also may be a peace and causeless joy behind any personal suffering.
To believe that one must be completely blissful all the time, without any mental or physical suffering to be enlightened, is just a misunderstanding. If you know without a doubt that you are in essence the Source of all, the impersonal Self (Awareness), I would consider most of your spiritual work done. At this point, the understanding does much of the remaining work effortlessly.
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