Tonight an interesting idea came to me.
I was wondering why people do things that make them feel bad,
Why people hurt themselves or suffer emotionally, in whatever ways…
I could see the first effect of suffering - we feel pain and sadness.
And feeling sad and hurt, the most natural response is to comfort ourselves,
To take care of our emotional wounding, opening heart to our own painful feeling.
And so it seemed clear: at least one reason why we cause ourselves suffering
Is to simply learn to love ourselves more, in comforting our pain.
We create this pain to give ourselves an opportunity for self-caring.
The first object of learning to love is, of course, oneself.
The way of open heart begins with compassion for our own pain.
If we learn to love more, perhaps next time we won’t hurt ourselves.
Yet, what about all the children who are born into poverty or warfare?
All those who seem so innocent, being harmed or damaged by their society?
Their hardship is not some emotional self-conflict, it’s genuine social oppression.
Yet, what about karma, and higher self programming life-lessons before we’re born?
It’s hard to imagine why souls would choose such a miserable life journey…
Yet, if we truly are souls, even these painful lives are planned from a higher dimension.
Perhaps for them too, from ancient karma we don’t understand, there is the same need,
The need to learn or re-learn self-love, and a spiritual demand to experience painful lives.
On planet earth, perhaps suffering is the major catalyst to help souls live in love.
So I wonder, could it be we all choose personal hardship to learn open heart?
To cause ourselves suffering -- to encourage ourselves to learn self-comforting?
And thereby to open heart, learning the way of love, beginning with ourselves.
Surely, we live in a world of great troubles, confusion, and conflict.
But the future world will see universal love, and in the shadow of that great living tree,
The suffering of our present time will dissolve like clouds in the sky.
Natural love of all, without giving ourselves trouble.
Scott Mandelker PhD
January 11, 2008
San Francisco, CA