Meaning of Human Suffering— Swami Vireshananda —RKM
Suffering is one of the most profound and disturbing of human
experiences. The very word suffering has a resonance that relates to our
sense of life’s meaning and the threat suffering poses to our hopes of
happiness. It does not refer just to maladies, pains, and difficulties with
which we can and should cope. It involves crises and threats that
constitute a degradation or alienation of our being.
2 Sankhya Karika, a classical work of Sankhya philosophy, says that the
three kinds of misery in one’s life leads to the inquiry into the means of
terminating them. The three kinds of pain or suffering are:
Dukkah trayaabhi ghaataat jijnasaa tadapghaatake hetau |
Dhriste saa aparthaa chet naikanta atyantatou abhavat ||
Dukkah traya – The three main sufferings, sorrows, miseries
Abhighataat – misery, grief, anguish, suffering due to pain
Jijnasa – desire, longing
Tadapghaatake – removing, killing that pain and misery
Hetau – Cause, methods of
Dhriste – are known, seenSaa – it, with
Apartha – superfluous, redundant, unnecessary
Chet – and if it may be said Na – not so
Ikanta – no surety that the pain will be removed
Atyantatou – nor that they will not occur again
Abhavat – abscence ofĀdhyātmika, one’s physical and mental afflictions;
Ādhibhautika, pain caused by other living beings; and
Ādhidaivika, pain caused by natural calamities and supernatural agencies.
This ancient verse is significant as it underscores the utility of religion
or philosophy (combinedly referred to as Darshana from the Vedic
perspective) in removing pain, and thus becoming the media of deliberation
on the nature of things around us. Religion vouches for the removal of pain
and sufferings of the believers, whereas philosophy aims at solving the
problem of suffering through analytical means.
3 Some ancient Stoic philosophers and Friedrich Nietzsche, a German
philosopher, embraced the tragic sense of life. They held the view that
there was no plan, purpose, or meaning to existence. The world is just a
dynamic system of change and becoming. Whatever happens is without purpose
and motive. There is no transcendent meaning to it. Some other Stoic
philosophers thought that we should live life in accordance with nature
and that suffering is not an evil, as Seneca puts it: ‘Pain and poverty do
not make a man worse; therefore, they are not evil. Epictetus, another
Stoic philosopher, says that those people who accept everything that
befalls them in the physical world will live with equanimity. It is because
physical events like illness, lameness, and other forms of suffering affect
the body but not the will or moral being of a person.Kahlil Gibran says:
‘Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.’
4 Isha Upanishad says: ‘Tatra ko mohaḥ kaḥ śoka ekatvam anupaśyataḥ;
what sorrow can there be for that seer of oneness.’[verse7] The idea is
that sorrow and delusion come to the ignorant person who does not perceive
the oneness of existence. All kinds of suffering happen in the state of
diversity, which is caused due to the ignorance of one’s real nature. The
fundamental aspect of sorrow is transmigration from one body to another
commonly known as samsāra. Brihadaranyaka Upanishad graphically describes
the transmigration. It can be summarised as follows: What is meant by
birth? The individual soul, when it is born, is connected with the body and
organs, which are termed as Papam, evils, since they are the sources of
evils that lead to suffering. What is meant by death? When the individual
self leaves the body discarding the organs, it is called death. How does it
happen? Just as a heavily loaded cart goes on rumbling, the individual self
leaves the body making choking noises as the breathing becomes difficult.
The body becomes thin and emaciated as a result of old age or diseases.
Just as a mango, fig, or peepal fruit is detached from the stalk, so does
the individual self completely detach from all parts of the body and go out
in the same way in which it had entered the body. [B.U 4.3.8, 35 and 36]
Sri Shankaracharya observes that the self with the subtle body goes on
making noises at the time of death afflicted by pain as the vital parts are
slashed. Then the person gasps for breath. Besides, the memory will also be
lost. He will be in a helpless state of mind.
5 The Bhagavadgita says that misery and impermanence constitute the very
nature of this world: ‘Anityam asukhaṁ lokam imaṁ prāpya bhajasva mām;
having come to this ephemeral and miserable world, you worship Me.’[x] Sri
Krishna also teaches where to find the marks of suffering:
‘Janma-mṛityu-jarā-vyādhi-duḥkha-doṣānudarśanam; seeing the evil, in birth,
death, old age, diseases, and misery.’[9.33] Sri Shankaracharya explains
that the evil in birth consists in lying in the womb and coming out of it;
evil in old age is in the form of deprivation of intelligence, strength,
and vigour, and becoming an object of contempt.
6 No other religion has given so much importance to the idea of
‘suffering’ as Buddhism has done. The original Pali word ‘Dukkha’ is often
translated as ‘suffering’, ‘anxiety’, ‘stress’, and ‘unsatisfactoriness’.
Lord Buddha emphatically says in his teaching: ‘I have taught one thing and
one thing only, dukkha and the cessation of dukkha.’ Dukkha is not just the
physical or mental affliction suffered by human beings. According to the
Buddhist scholar Piyadassi Thera, dukkha is the unsatisfactory nature of
all phenomenal existence. He says that to the Buddha, the entire Buddhist
teaching is just an understanding of dukkha and the way out of this state
of unsatisfactoriness. However, Buddhistic philosophy is neither
pessimistic nor optimistic, but realistic. Dukkha is simply a basic fact of
life. It is but the clinging to temporary things, which is inherently
unsatisfying. In all, dukkha is a realistic view of life and the world.
7 A wise man thoroughly examines this ephemeral world and comes to a
conclusion as stated in the Mundaka Upanishad: ‘Parīkṣya
lokān-karmacitān-brāhmaṇo nirvedamāyān nāstyakṛtaḥ kṛtena; let a Brahmin
having examined the worlds produced by karma be free from desires,
thinking, “there is nothing eternal produced by karma”.’[1.2.12] All the
worlds, which are the abodes of enjoyment, are produced by karma. Such
actions can never lead us to the eternal, since they themselves are
produced and hence temporary.The Upanishad here indicates that
all-pervasive Duhkha, dissatisfaction, is due to the non-attainment of the
eternal, which can never be attained by temporary things including any kind
of action. Vedanta calls the whole of humanity to strive for the highest
spiritual truth, giving up the craving for worldly objects, which, by
nature, are impermanent and hence, cause nothing but dissatisfaction and
suffering. Also, it affirms that there is no other path for the
annihilation of suffering. An enlightened mystic declares in Svetasvatara
Upanishad: ‘I know this great Person who is resplendent like the sun and is
beyond the darkness. By knowing Him alone one transcends death; there is no
other path to go by.’[3.8] Sri Shankaracharya in his Vivekachudamani:
‘Save me from death, afflicted as I am by the unquenchable fire of this
world-forest, and shaken violently by the winds of an untoward lot,
terrified and (so) seeking refuge in thee, for I do not know of any other
person with whom to seek shelter.’[36]
8 ‘Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return
thither; the Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of
the Lord.’ Thus said the old Jewish saint when suffering the greatest
calamities that could befall man, and he erred not. Herein lies the whole
secret of Existence. Waves may roll over the surface and tempest rage, but
deep down there is the stratum of infinite calmness, infinite peace, and
infinite bliss. ‘Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.’
And why? Because it is during these moments of visitations when the heart
is wrung by hands which never stop for the father’s cries or the mother’s
wail, when under the load of sorrow, dejection, and despair, the world
seems to be cut off from under our feet, and when the whole horizon seems
to be nothing but an impenetrable sheet of misery and utter despair—that
the internal eyes open, light flashes all of a sudden, the dream vanishes,
and intuitively we come face to face with the grandest mystery in
nature—Existence.[the complete works of Vivekananda]
9 Swamiji always saw a ray of hope in the dense darkness of the
tribulations of life. Being a prodigious poet, he sings in one of his poems
‘Angels Unawares’ written on 1 September 1898:
One bending low with load of life—That meant no joy,
but suffering harsh and hard—And wending on his way
through dark and dismal paths Without a flash of light from brain or
heart
To give a moment’s cheer, till the line That marks out pain from
pleasure, death from life,
And good from what is evil was well-nigh wiped from sight,
Saw, one blessed night, a faint but beautiful ray of light
Descend to him. He knew not what or where from,
But called it God and worshipped. [4.354 to 385]
K Rajaram IRS 22224
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