SUFFERING: LINUS AIND

SUFFERING

Many centuries passed, big mighty empires dawned and doomed, big intellectuals emerged and gone, sages and saints appeared and disappeared yet the question of “Why Suffering?” remains unanswered and a big mystery. What is suffering? In simple words, “it is qualified as physical, emotional or mental agony and pain that comes in all degrees of intensity, from mild to intolerable in diverse manners, and often dramatically”¹. We sometimes ponder why a just God permits good people to suffer. We look around us, and see a world that is filled with hurt and pain. We see the torment of broken minds, the emotional turmoil of shattered relationships, and the physical anguish of hungry bellies or war torn bodies. Why so much suffering? What is the purpose of pain?

Many religions have tried to view it differently and in most cases negatively with narrow mindedness in order to get some meaning out of it as it plays a very important role in religion. People often believe that the worst form of evil is extreme suffering,

The 'Four Noble Truths' of Buddhism are about dukkha, a term usually translated as suffering. They state (1) the nature of suffering, (2) its cause, (3) its cessation, and (4) the way leading to its cessation (which is the Noble Eightfold Path)². Buddhism considers liberation from suffering to attaining nirvana.

Hinduism holds that “Suffering follows naturally from personal negative behaviors in one’s current life or in a past life (karma).One must accept suffering as a just consequence and as an opportunity for spiritual progress.”³

The Bible, in the “Book of Job” reflects on the nature and meaning of suffering. Pope John Paul II writes "On the Christian Meaning of Human Suffering." This meaning revolves around the notion of redemptive suffering; Roman Catholic belief that human suffering, when accepted and offered up in union with the Passionof Jesus, can remit the just punishment for one's sins or for the sins of another.”

REFLECTION:

We live in a suffering world where people in famine striken area need food; despairing people need encouragement, and outcast need a loving touch. Some say suffering is a test to our faith, to our character and to our values. It can make one better or even bitter. It can make us bitter if we jump to the wrong conclusion. It can make us better if we open our eyes to the wonders, power, wisdom and goodness that we can draw from it. Even a diamond comes out of dark dirty coal and lotus from dirty mud. Suffering transports one into a special world where no one else can follow.

The basic question for human beings is then “How should we understand this suffering which is a mystery. However as a Christian I ought to understand suffering as Jesus understood with a meaning and purpose. "Despair is suffering without meaning." writes Viktor Frankl. And so we ought to discover meaning and purpose behind all our sufferings which will provide motivation to bear. As in the words of Viktor Frankl, “He who has a “why” to live can bear almost anyhow”⁴. “Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it," says Helen Keller. I feel we have to look at suffering in a positive attitude which for sure is the hard way and see what it offers?

I think suffering makes our life interesting otherwise a suffering-free state of false bliss life that would leave each and all of us as bored dilettantes living a sterile and stupid life. That is, we can call something 'life' which has challenges, repentances, learning, growing, all of which only comes through trial, error, taking part, success, pain, loss, and suffering. “Suffering grabs you and drags you to the place where you discover how much you need God's grace because you have no power to do otherwise, and sometimes because it just works best that way”⁵. Sufferings are the exchanges of love which can only be made on the cross”⁶. I think it all depends how one responds to suffering because for some it isn’t suffering but just love.

FOOTNOTES

1 Siu Ralph G.H. Panetics − The Study of the Infliction of Suffering, Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Vol. 28 No. 3, Summer 1988, p. 87.

2 I. B. Horner, The Living Thoughts of Gotama the Buddha. London: Cassell, 1948, p. 109.

3 Thomas J. Hopkins, The Hindu Religious Tradition. Encino, Calif.: Dickenson, 1971, p. 224.

4 Viktor Frankl, Man Search for Meaning, New Delhi: CMG, 1990, p. 93.

5 Harold, Schweizer, Suffering and the Remedy of Art. Albany, N.Y: State University of New York Press, 1997, p. 86.

6 Rose John Sunday Homilies, Bangalore: Asian Trading Corporation, 2005, p. 102.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Hopkins, Thomas J. The Hindu Religious Tradition. Encino, Calif.: Dickenson, 1971.

Horner, I. B., The Living Thoughts of Gotama the Buddha. London: Cassell, 1948.

Iain Wilkinson, Suffering - A Sociological Introduction, Polity Press, 2005

Kraemer, David. Responses to Suffering in Classical Rabbinic Literature. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Ralph G.H., Siu, Panetics- The Study of the Infliction of Suffering, Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Vol. 28 No. 3, Summer, 1988.

John, Rose Sunday Homilies, Bangalore: Asian Trading Corporation, 2005

Schweizer, Harold, Suffering and the remedy of art. Albany, N.Y: State University of New York Press, 1997.

Frankl, Viktor Man Search for Meaning, New Delhi: CMG, 1990.