Page 56 - NAMAH-Jul-2024

Insight

Origin and Nature of Suffering

Nolini Kanta Gupta

Suffering there is, some say, because the what delight can the soul take when the body
soul takes delight in it: if there was not the is suffering, say, from cancer. If it is delight,
soul’s delight behind, there would not be it must be of a perverse variety. Is it not the
any suffering at all. There are still two other whole effort of mankind to get rid of pain
positions with regard to suffering which we do and suffering, make of our life and of the
not deal with in the present context, namely, world, if possible, a visible play of pure and
(1) that it does not exist at all, the absolute undefiled Ananda?
Ananda of the Brahman being the sole reality,
suffering, along with the manifested world of On the other hand, we do find that suffering
which it is a part, is illusion pure and simple, is not always mere suffering, that it can be
(2) that suffering exists, but it comes not from turned into a thing of joy; it is a fact proved in
soul or God but from the Anti-divine: it is the lives of many a martyr and many a saint.
at the most tolerated by God and He uses Many indeed are those who have not only
it as best as He can for His purpose. That, borne suffering passively but have welcomed
however, is not our subject here. We ask then it and courted it with happiness and delight. If it

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