The Higher Purpose of Human Suffering

The higher purpose of human suffering is a complex and philosophical concept that various religious, spiritual, and philosophical traditions throughout history have explored. Different perspectives offer different interpretations. It's important to note that perspectives on the purpose of suffering vary widely, and individuals may find meaning in different ways based on their cultural, religious, or philosophical beliefs. Additionally, discussions on this topic often delve into profound and subjective realms that may not have universally accepted answers.

 

 

About  Maetreyii Ma Nolan, Ph.D.

 

In addition to writing eight books, doing lecture tours, and maintaining an ashram in Northern California, Maetreyii Ma is a licensed Transpersonal Psychologist and an Acharya, or ordained yogic minister. Maetreyii Ma refers to herself as an “everyday mystic,” for good reason. Her talks are as practical as they are esoteric. She’s spent her adult life helping people understand, heal, and grow through love.

 

Since 1969, Maetreyii Ma has been a student of Shrii Shrii Anandamurti, affectionately known as Baba, In 1970, she began to have profound mystical experiences of the Divine and experience the inner presence of her Guru. Baba's inner presence brought a deep experience of the endless love and compassion of the Divine, perfect beauty and wisdom, and the unconditional love and overflowing grace of the Sadguru.

 

You can visit her website here: https://www.maetreyiima.org/.

 

About Maetreyii Ma’s Works

Over the past decades, Maetreyii Ma has delivered over 1,000 presentations to various audiences. Her latest project is to make those presentations available to the widest possible audience.

 

Maetreyii Ma talks fall into six main categories:

 

1.  The Power and Nature of Love

2.  Self Realization, Spirituality, and Awakening

3.  Dharma, Society & Karma

4.  Working with the Mind & Emotions

5.  Relationships & Samgha

6.  Science & Cosmology

 

The Baba Flow

 

Maetreyii Ma’s talks are based on a spiritual process called Baba Flow. The Baba flow is an intuitive flow of spiritual guidance and teachings from the deep inner essence, the one essential Source known by many names. In the Baba Talks, Maetreyii Ma, in a deep state of Bhava, or devotional absorption, opens to this Source and allows the teachings to flow through.

 

About Ananda Gurukula

 

Maetreyii Ma is President of Ananda Gurukula, a non-profit organization dedicated to awakening the human spirit and sharing the ancient mystic wisdom of yoga. Through Ananda Gurukula, Maetreyii Ma is able to offer meditation practices, mentoring, meditation and yoga wisdom retreats, webinars and workshops on the ancient knowledge of yogic teachings.  In addition to local weekly meditation evenings, called Dharmachakra, there is a third Friday Kirtan, and a first Friday Satsanga. Readers in the Santa Rosa area are invited to attend our events at the Ashram. Simply go to http://www.yogama.info and look under events.

 

For those who do not live in the local Santa Rosa area, Maetreyii Ma offers talks and workshops as webinars. You can find out more about these at http://www.maetreyiima.org/webinars.html. 

 

In addition, Ananda Gurukula publishes books and the Baba inspirational writings on many subjects. See more about Maetreyii Ma’s books at https://www.maetreyiima.org/shop.html.

.css-j9qmi7{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:row;-ms-flex-direction:row;flex-direction:row;font-weight:700;margin-bottom:1rem;margin-top:2.8rem;width:100%;-webkit-box-pack:start;-ms-flex-pack:start;-webkit-justify-content:start;justify-content:start;padding-left:5rem;}@media only screen and (max-width: 599px){.css-j9qmi7{padding-left:0;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;}}.css-j9qmi7 svg{fill:#27292D;}.css-j9qmi7 .eagfbvw0{-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;color:#27292D;}

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Human life has both high points and low points.
There are difficulties in the life that arise for all.
It seems that for some, the difficulties are more.

(00:20):
For others, life seems to be giving them a light load. But no one goes through
this life without a certain amount of suffering.
There is loss of loved ones, loss of status, loss of prestige,

(00:42):
physical ailments, and loss of capacities of the body.
All of these sustain a situation in which there is natural suffering in human life.
But there are also those who struggle with poverty, war, excessive loss of loved ones.

(01:14):
Inability to achieve their greatest names, and severe physical disabilities
or mental disabilities.
So life is
not even it is a scattering
the pain and

(01:35):
suffering that you have is your doorway to understanding and compassion for
all living beings without it your heart may become hard you don't understand
why other people suffer suffer,
you don't empathize with their suffering.

(01:59):
And so you can become hard, well, it's their fault.
If they'd have worked harder, if they'd have been into a different status,
if, if, if, then they would not suffer as they do.
It's easy to take this view, but it is a hard-hearted view.

(02:23):
And when your own suffering comes to you, that view tends to go away.
You realize there is pain in life.
And some may think, oh, I am a great yogi. I am beyond pain.
I have neutralized my karma, and I do not suffer.

(02:49):
And if others could do the spiritual path, they would be beyond suffering as well.
This is a dream, a false expectation.
When the heart is fully open and the universal whole of life is seen,

(03:10):
there is indeed that calm center of unconditional love.
Where there is great love for all that is.
There is a deep peace and calm in the center of it all.

(03:31):
The knowing that though forms rise and fall, situations rise and fall,
the one One eternal essence remains the same, and all beings are of that essence, all creation,
both that which is difficult and destructive and that which is positive to life,

(03:58):
creative, creative all abide in the cosmic presence, in the mind,
in the consciousness of the infinite.
All creation is within the body of that one, like the dream in the mind of the dreamer.

(04:21):
So you say I know this now and I have experienced this.
Cosmic consciousness. I know it exists.
I know that I'm a part of it. All beings are of that.
Though change happens in this world, the true nature of all that is is changeless.

(04:47):
Yet, as long as you remain in a physical form,
as long as you participate in
this world of duality, You dance the dance within the dream of creation.
And in that dance, there are highs and lows, ups and downs, forward and backward.

(05:15):
There is Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva.
Creativity and birth. Preservation.
And destruction, dissolution. Those three elements go on and on,
and you are not immune to them.

(05:39):
So there is one solution, not to disassociate yourself from the pain of living
beings and from your own pain? No.
But to stay in remembrance, giving your pain context,

(06:01):
but not running from it, not pushing it away,
not saying, I am a spiritual person, and if I am a spiritual person,
I will not have this pain because I will see that everything is one.
You may see that, but as long as you reside in a human body,

(06:23):
your conscious awareness is susceptible to human desires, human logings,
human feelings, the biology of the body.
So if your leg is cut, you will feel pain.

(06:44):
If your heart is wounded, you will feel pain, and there is only one solution to pain,
mental pain, physical pain,
even spiritual pain, and that is love.

(07:05):
Love so great, love so kind, so expansive, that it engulfs pain, accepts pain.
Knows that all that is in this manifest world is transitory,
but in this moment, that is the reality, and surrender,

(07:30):
acceptance, not discouragement, but love that overcomes fear,
fear of pain, fear of disability,
fear of losing.
The longing, the aching, the sorrow,
they are real in this relative

(07:53):
reality they hold a relative reality
of consciousness bound in form but love is a greater force than all of these
things and the deeper you go in love acceptance surrender the closer you move,

(08:15):
to feeling that unitary wholeness, because that wholeness includes pain,
sorrow, suffering, as well as joy.
Happiness, well-being.
It includes the gamut of experience.

(08:37):
Love yourself unconditionally for the gamut of your experience.
Your consciousness brought to different situations that challenge you,
that bring your awareness to challenge.

(08:59):
They are your teachers.
They are the moments the universe has provided for you, the infinite has provided
for you, to show, are you ready?
Can you be with what is and open your heart fully?

(09:19):
Love, can you be the embodiment of divine love, the embodiment of infinite compassion,
for yourself and for all living beings, for the humanness that you experience in your incarnation,

(09:40):
your sadness, your joy, your fear, your anger, your struggles, your accomplishments.
Can you look at all of that and shower unconditional love on yourself and on all living beings.

(10:03):
Can you be in the depths of love?
Parama Purusha, that infinite consciousness.
The one in which the whole universe abides,
is the quiescent essence within the heart of all that That is,

(10:27):
that quiescence is neither in reaction or in attraction,
but remains a witnessing awareness of all experience.
When you deepen through love into quiescence, into that infinite peace that abides always.

(10:59):
Then you come to know that essential awareness at the core of all that is.
Why run from the pain?
Why grab for what you think your life should be?
But find the heaven, the joy, the happiness within the situation you have,

(11:29):
within the pain, within the sorrow, within the loss.
Let it all be a part of one integrated, infinite whole of being.

(11:51):
The dance of creation, the dance of humankind.
Existence in which you participate, in the world, but not of it.
For that love, that compassion, that empathy may bring tears in your eyes,

(12:13):
hurt in your heart, but beneath that hurt, in that unconditional love which
accepts creation as it is,
is that eternal peace,
that calmness in which there is only one eternal essence of being.

(12:40):
When you deeply surrender surrender in acceptance.
You begin to touch that which lies within.
Your pain becomes not an obstacle, but a doorway,
making you serious about what you are doing, making you search the depths of

(13:03):
your soul rather than fly from one experience to another, to another,
never looking into the the depths of your being.
So these are the course corrections that the Infinite One provides out of grace.

(13:24):
If you have struggle in your life, if you have challenge and difficulty,
do not see them as your obstacles to your spiritual consciousness,
but rather as the teachings of the Lord, the teachings of the Great One in your

(13:45):
life, to correct your course,
to deepen your love, love, to bring you to honesty and sincerity in your search
for the one love, the one truth.
The one divine being for your Baba, your Ma.

(14:09):
When you truly come to this love, this acceptance, acceptance.
It is not that you do not cry. It is not that you do not feel.
But there is a great love within you, a great love that accepts.
There is no you separate from that love, separate from that peace,

(14:35):
the peace of knowing, the wholeness of being.
So, remember, your sorrow, your sadness,
your worry, your struggle is perhaps not a burden, but a teaching to deepen

(14:56):
your love, your physical pain.
It's natural that human bodies are not permanent, and they have problems.
This is the natural course of life, and it is perhaps not your bane,
but your gift from the gods. So, this is the key.

(15:22):
Transmute your suffering into the gift of love, of deepening, of knowing your soul.
The Infinite One draws all beings towards itself, towards the Purushottama, the cosmic nucleus.

(15:44):
Miraculous, and in that draw, the small parts of yourself are devoured, and awareness expands.
But what the gifts of the infinite look like, you do not know from your perspective.
Love all, and that love begins with loving your own self, loving your own life,

(16:12):
accepting Accepting what is,
and then finding your joy, moment by moment, in the love that always is. All right?