The form of suffering
You lie on the bed of your suffering in severe physical pain. In this state it seems far too hard to you to strive and give form to your suffering also…
Full of fear you look for external help, and every potion in which you put your trust seems to you far more valuable than taking such action…
On good days perhaps you thought you had long ago ‘left behind you all earthly cares’. –
Now you have to recognise the extent to which you are still fettered to the earth. – –
But you do not want to understand that your spiritual power could release you from your captivity, even if it does not free you completely. –
To be sure, your poor body is tormented to such an extent that it is scarcely still in control of its senses…
You only know how to plead for just one thing: – an end to your suffering…
It seems to you mockery to speak of giving form to your suffering. –
Yet behold: I can truly feel your pain, for I have seldom been completely spared from suffering. – –
And so, I may truly speak of suffering too and of its overcoming through the form in which you can endure it…
I know only too well how much the suffering of the body can weigh upon a person, and how, despite this, it can be restrained when given form. –
What can be achieved through spiritual formation almost goes beyond all imagination; moreover, a spiritual approach can continue to control everything physical, however tormenting it may be. – – –
You will soon be able to overcome what you believe you are still scarcely able to bear as long as you argue and quarrel with your fate, if you bear it willingly, as though it is naturally linked to your life’s truest form, as though it could not be any other way. – –
Blessed are you if you learn to devalue physical suffering to the extent that you are no longer obliged to pay attention to it!
As long as you are still surrendering yourself to your suffering, like a slave to his cruel master, shaking with fear as he awaits the lash of the whip, you have not yet given the form to your suffering worthy of you, ! –
You should encounter your suffering with nothing other than ‘contempt’; only by showing contempt will you become its master!! –
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Likewise you must strive for dominion over every other torment you may meet!
Suffering of the soul would also humiliate and control you! –
Of this too I have much to say, and again, not as one speaking of things unfamiliar! – –
I have seen many people, however, who loved the suffering of their soul so much that they hardly wanted to let it go when it left them of its own accord…
Truly, this is not the right way to confront suffering which would cast down the soul!
You must also learn to master the suffering of your soul and force it into a form worthy of you! – –
As long as you are just ‘brooding’ within yourself, trying to ‘find out’ the ultimate meaning of your suffering, you are simply digging a grave for your power of resistance!…
The ‘meaning’ of your suffering cannot be unearthed, for truly: – your suffering has no ‘meaning’ until you bestow one upon it, and only in this manner can it take on ‘meaning’ for you! – –
Your suffering may be bitter to the taste, yet you should not allow yourself to be embittered by your suffering! –
Your suffering may seem ‘great’ to you, beyond all measure, yet you should not borrow your greatness from your suffering! – –
You should not erect an altar to your suffering within you; you should not carry it with raised hands like a relic!
Just as you must learn to have contempt for your physical suffering, so too you will have to learn to make use of the suffering of your soul: – make use of it in a form which serves you in forming yourself! – – –
You must also not abandon yourself to your suffering!
You must raise yourself above your suffering and learn to command it!
You are yourself what will remain, – your suffering is transient. It lies to you when it seeks to deceive you into believing in its permanence! – –
Learn to set limits to your suffering; they must give it form according to your will! – –
Your suffering will only bring about catastrophe if you fail to restrain it! – –
But only by conquering your suffering can you attain the spirit!
You must indeed value yourself more highly than your suffering, for the radiant light of the spirit will reveal itself to you within your own being! – – –
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