Let's put it in this context: Can suffering actually HELP you?

Are you serious? Haha… I don’t know how I’ve come across, but being behind a computer screen gives me confidence… I am not so confrontational… I am extremely shy in fact :slight_smile:

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GI Gurdjieff I read him also. Learnt a lot while reading his books. My family taught me Mehera Baba’s teachings as a kid. I think suffering can and does help me to understand who I am and what my limits are. Without suffering I can’t learn anything deeper about life and myself.

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Thanks for all that @Goyankees. It makes me feel real good about being on these forums the past 7 years and makes me feel all the time I’ve spent on here is more than worth it. It’s nice to be appreciated.

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life itself is suffering & thirst for things. nirvana is peace & rest.

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really? your family read meher baba?

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suffering is the way to nirvana.
also suffering injustice, pain etc is the way to kindness.

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his moustache is mine also. we have the same body. I came as Buddha, rama, krishna, caitanya mahaprabhu, Sri sankaracharya, Bodhidharma etc and I will keep on coming for the sake of beings.
now i came as lunatic to enlighten madmen as well. all have the right to enlightenment.

I feel frustrated that I cannot find a reason as to how my own past and present suffering can mold me into a better biped. But even more I feel worse when I see others suffer and I get the evil thought that I hoped they learned something from their experiences.

This is a good question, difficult to grasp, but a good thread.

I am catching up on some of the older posts here. Does suffering help? I am in that older member’s category BigJon speaks of (50+).
During the suffering I find I do not even use the word “suffering,” as if I am not even aware that such a concept exists. Then when I am feeling better I can get into this sort of discussion.
Sometimes I will say suffering does not matter one bit. There are no changes, not even within my own self. Sorry.
Then sometimes I say “what are we here for” and I feel I have contributed to life a great deal by suffering. This is a much better understanding and something I accept on faith. I feel some pride in all I have been through.
So how might it help? I think it is like spiritual currency and we are giving blood for the world.

If this is true, will two major psychotic breaks help you - awaken, enlighten- you more than one? Its kind of like asking, if youre a drug addict, will two rounds of addiction and hitting rock bottom ultimately “help” you more than one?

I know schizophrenia has traumatized me and I’ve had it since 2011, but at the same time the way I was treated and losing all my family and friends on the outside of schizophrenia I felt like a hate monster attacked me and gobbled up all my love. Sounds silly now I guess, but it’s actually rather frightening. I had never experienced such pain as with schizophrenia and I hope to God, if there is one, I never do again. I always considered myself a giving, understanding person, and perhaps in some aspects I am even more so now. Just scared. Like I’m supposed to be starting work, probably McDonald’s, but panic sits in on my disease and I want to run the other direction wondering what people will think of me. I think you can always tell when someone has gone through trauma. Not just bad times with suffering but trauma, and it takes a while to heal, but I do think it pushes you a little further into humanity’s pocket. So to say the least I think we are one step further up the food chain😏.

Hey, I don’t know how you’re finding these old threads, but the community generally frowns upon reviving old threads. Make new ones instead :slight_smile:

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@Ninjastar can you close this

Hi @Lovemealways. Typically, we like to leave inactive threads alone and just start a new thread instead. This is different than how some forums are run, but we do it this way because it frequently upsets users to have old topics revived when they are no longer relevant. It can also be frustrating to the person who revived the thread when they don’t get a reply, because the original poster is no longer active or no longer finds the topic relevant. Feel free to start a new thread on this topic.

Thanks,

Ninjastar
Volunteer Moderator

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