Spiritual Growth Through Suffering | Common Misconceptions
“Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain but for the heart to conquer it.” Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) Indian Hindu mystic philosopher.
What is spiritual suffering? Will suffering lead to spiritual growth?
Hello, Jason Cain here and welcome to the Ancient wisdom modern mind podcast and today I’m going to confront the common misconception that suffering will lead to spiritual growth, and I think this idea has taken root because of the idea that suffering builds character. And although a little hardship really does strengthen our character and can even motivate us to try harder, but suffering in itself does not lead to spiritual growth and enlightenment.
Both the Positivity Movement and Faith Based Religions often push the idea that suffering will be rewarded, they do this because their spiritual understanding is a simplistic positive vs negative view of reality, and although this positive vs negative perspective has a real world two dimensional effect, it is not relative to the higher spiritual states of awareness.
Just consider how many people are suffering in this world, these people do not rise up to become spiritual leaders, but instead fall down into depravity and despair, and the reason for this is that the nature of ego is suffering, and the more the ego is indulged the more its depravity and suffering increases.
As a final thought let’s consider Buddha’s most famous statement. “Attachment is the cause of all suffering", Buddha did not say that suffering was the cause of enlightenment, in fact Buddha’s statement implies that the absence of suffering leads to enlightenment.
So please watch the podcast without skipping to understand it in detail, and if you have any questions put it in the comment section, I’ll try my best to clear your confusion.
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References
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► Creator: Kat J, Image title: Tears for the loss of a beloved family member, Web Link: https://unsplash.com/photos/NPmR0RblyhQ
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