Necessary for who? For what?
But at the same time, pain happens, and we cannot deny that.
And the whole seeking mechanism at its core is about trying to escape the pain of living - the uncertainty, the discomfort, the longing.
And this failed attempt to escape pain is known as suffering. And it is suffering - the experience of separation, the pushing away of life, the forgetting of who we are - that perhaps leads us to begin to deeply question who we are, as the Buddha taught.
Everybody suffers in their own way.
There is no "right" way to suffer. And there is no level of suffering that is "required". But nobody has ever escaped suffering either.
Was suffering necessary for you? Yes and no.
No, of course not, since nothing is necessary for life to be as it is right now. Even the appearance of suffering is life too, from that "ultimate" perspective.
In my own experience, years ago, on the ultimate level that too was perfection, that too was life, though that was not seen at the time!!
On the other hand - and I can only speak from experience - it was that very deep suffering, and the attempt to find some freedom from suffering, and the longing for deep rest, that pointed to the discovery of who I am, and who I always was - to that which never changes.
If I hadn't suffered, would I have been interested in the end of suffering? Can we really say?
So on one hand, suffering was not necessary.
What I am cannot change and has never changed - and no suffering or absence of it changes that.
On the other hand, if it wasn't for suffering, we would possibly never deeply begin to question our core beliefs.
Suffering can always draws us to the fundamental question "Who Am I"? "Who is suffering?", and so on.....
It's another division, to separate "nonduality" from something called "duality", and favour one of them over the other!
Or to preach that "nonduality" is more "real" than "duality", or that "duality" can be dissolved and there can be only "nonduality".
More illusion! Part of the infinite dream......
There is no division in life itself prior to thought, and so then we cannot even speak of "nonduality" as divided from "duality".
As I have always said "nonduality" is another illusion. It is the most dualistic thing to try to "dissolve duality"....
There is no "divine engineering", there is nobody in control, no benevolent or evil force at work, planning our lives, punishing us, trying to wake us up, and it helps not to take this poetry too literally. It speaks to the heart, the gut, not the head......
Is suffering necessary? Yes and no.
Depends from which perspective you want to answer that question. This is not a crushing of our humanity, but a total honouring of it, the sacredness of it, and a waking up from those outdated myths of sin, punishment and so on.
We are innocent at our very core.
Life itself cannot be 'brutal, even if it SEEMS that way sometimes, and this poetry honours both the seeming, and the realisation that it is not at all what it seems.
Not everyone resonates with this kind of expression. We all hear different music. I do understand....
ps/smoh
