Page 48 - NAMAH-Jul-2022

The Art of Suffering Well

Dr. Monica Gulati

Abstract
At the present stage of human evolution, somehow the way we are, we do suffer, before we can
transcend the suffering and let go of the need for suffering in order to grow and expand in our
consciousness. While the suffering is manifesting itself, I have a choice. While the ground beneath
me is ripped apart from as I had known it, I have a choice. I have a choice to use the suffering well,
or to let it push me into plunges of darkness with no sight of light. I have a choice to let go of my
stubbornness to be obsessed by the limited sense of self, or to connect deeply with my suffering,
to embrace it, and hence embrace the suffering of the whole of existence. What I choose, decides
what transpires from the raw material of the seeming suffering.

“If you know how to suffer well, you suffer much less.” — Thich Naht Hahn.

to the True soul’. The desiring self is a clingy
one. It is sticky. It sticks to people, it sticks to
ideas, it sticks to thoughts, stories in the head,
feelings, opinions and such like. Anything
that I stick to has the power of making me
suffer. My stickiness is the one that makes
me suffer. And because we start the journey
mostly from the desire-soul, we undergo
some or more suffering, before we can do
without it. In fact, it is only when I suffer
Why does suffering exist? that I realise or become conscious of my
stickiness. Before that, all is hunky dory! I
Our human adventure begins from darkness am unconscious of my desire-soul, or rather
towards light, from doubts and confusion unaware that I am living identified with the
towards increasing clarity and wisdom. And desire-soul.
as Sri Aurobindo says: ‘from the Desire-soul

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