How Can I End My Suffering?

I have heard that question asked many times of the dasas at the Oneness University in Golden City, India, including Ananda Giri. Their compassionate replies were always along the same lines, so I have combined and edited their answers into the following compilation of their wisdom and spiritual truths.

--P. J., January, 2008

What Causes Suffering?

It is commonly believed today that by changing a situation that is making us uncomfortable, we will find happiness. But even Bhagavan tells us that suffering is never in the situation itself.

Often when something unexpected happens that cause us pain and suffering, even though the occurrence has long ago passed, we still carry its effects around inside of us, along with constant questions of, "Why? How could this possibly happen to me? What should I have done differently?" This is followed by all the rationalizations as to why it happened at all.

In life, situations are always arising--for anyone and everyone--and they will continue. That's a fact. But just because a problem arises is no reason for anyone to suffer, because the problem itself does not intrinsically contain any suffering.

It is the way that you question the situation, the ruminating over why you think it happened to you, and your inability to accept the particular situation that is causing you the pain and suffering.

What is the Solution?

As long as you think that your internal and psychological suffering is resulting from external situations or people, your natural inclination is to want to blame that person and/or change the situation. This only prolongs your suffering, because your attention is turned outward as you search for solutions in places where they don't exist, simply because...

Suffering is not in the fact, but in your perception of the fact.

As long as you think that psychological suffering is resulting from external situations or from other people, you will continue to try to avoid situations, change the circumstances, or want to blame or change people.

If you begin to see that suffering is not because of some situation or person, but it is because of the way you perceive and experience them, then your situation starts to move inwards. You will begin looking at yourself, looking at your inner perceptions, and there you will find the answer to your suffering.

You will also begin to see how your mind is interpreting your experiences, how it is constantly adding meaning and value to every experience. It is that added meaning and value--the story that the mind is building around the experience--that is causing all the pain and suffering.

If you feel that you have to wait for others to change or for a situation to change to become free of suffering, then that is despair. You feel hopeless because the mind begins to think, "Unless this changes how am I ever going to become free of my suffering?" So you only become more and more restless, even desparate.

Once you realize that everything is in your hands, that no one is responsible, that nothing needs to change, that you only need to change the way you look at things--that is the end of your suffering. That is the work of faith. That is hope.

When hope arises in you, it is not long before suffering completely ends. The key to your liberation from suffering lies in your own hands. It is not dependent on anything or anyone else. You don't need to expend energy on changing anything, you just have to be aware of your perceptions, and your perceptions will naturally dissolve in your awareness. By seeing your perceptions, staying with them, and becoming aware of them, you'll finally see an end to your suffering.

Begin to observe situations in your life and your relationships, and notice how it is the habit of the mind to constantly search outwardly, to constantly blame external factors for those perceived problems. Watch how the mind cleverly conjures up its own perceptions and stories to explain and justify a situation.

Once you see this, you can become completely detached from the external situations, you will stop blaming the external facts, and your attention gets established in the internal perceptions. Then you become free of inner suffering.

Can Deeksha (Oneness Blessings) Help?

You can pray to the Divine and ask for help with this. You can also have deekshas to help become aware of the truths in your life.

Jesus Christ and the Buddha felt enormous love and peace because their brains were wired differently. It's possible for you to feel that same love and tranquility when, through deeksha, similar changes occur in the gray matter of your brain. A Oneness Blessing can create these changes within your physical body.

When Oneness Blessings are given, a neurobiological transformation takes place within the brain and body that leads to love, peace, and all the other things that you've been searching for, including the end to suffering.

You will finally be happy.