Love Is the Answer to Pain & Suffering

“You will see it as quite difficult at first to respond to such situations in a new way, but all situations within the house of illusion call for the same response, the response of love to love. Why think you it is loving to believe in suffering? Do you not begin to see that in so doing you but reinforce it? What you might even call the “fact” of it? Can you not instead ask yourself what harm could be done by offering a new kind of observance?” (ACOL, T3:20.8)

If we don’t focus on suffering, it lessens—and this is true for our own suffering as well as the suffering of others. What we emphasize does grow in breadth and depth. What we focus on, expands. While we don’t want to close our eyes to the suffering of others, we are encouraged to believe that we will look on pain differently as time passes and our Christ-consciousness is in place. We will see with new eyes. We won’t commiserate in quite the same way, a way that heretofore has only reinforced suffering. What we will feel, as these blog posts recently have emphasized, is a compassion for those who seem to suffering. The suffering is not real, but it is real for those so involved. Illusion is very real to those caught in the house of illusion.

Our way is to provide an alternative from the House of Truth, or God’s Kingdom. We are not to try to reenter illusion in an attempt to save those caught within. Those there have their saviors. Our way is to provide the difference by living differently ourselves. If we don’t ever let our pain escalate into suffering, we will provide a very real example of a new way of being, a new truth. We will love with all the will that we are capable of mustering, but we won’t reinforce illusions by seeming to believe in it.

Suffering and pain are evidence of illusion. Heaven on earth, true reality, doesn’t contain these negatives. This does not mean that we cannot see suffering and pain from true reality. We often don’t see, though, and that in itself is a blessing. When we have moved beyond, we have moved beyond. And our vision sees a glorious new world that is pain-free. We will never know the “why” of suffering while still on this plane, in this world. But we can learn to view life differently, and in the new viewing, pain and suffering are eclipsed by the love that the Christ-Self has for all human beings. Love truly is the answer.

Prayer

May I live differently today, leaving aside, through my vision, any evidence of pain or suffering. There is a way in which these lamentables disappear. And I would like to find it, and find it today.

Your way suggests that if I focus on love, a new way of being will emerge, and I will leave pain and suffering in the dust behind me. Help me to do just this today.

Thank You for the glorious day that I see when I look outside. Nature seems to speak from You, and that is abundant comfort indeed.

Amen.