You cannot truly help someone else to be free from suffering while your mind is ITSELF choosing to suffer. It's like the blind leading the blind or the drowning man trying to save someone else who is drowning. When we see others as suffering and experience conflict, guilt, pain about it we are really USING them to reinforce our own CHOICE to suffer. We see them as JUSTIFICATION for our own suffering and conflict and so we're not really diminishing their suffering but reinforcing it AND adding to the overall pain that exists in the world.
Only a mind truly free of the need to suffer is able to see others clearly enough to give them what they TRULY need. As long as you are afraid and in conflict yourself, ANYTHING you do in response to others will simply be a means of trying to alleviate your OWN suffering, to manage your own conflict. You can't see others clearly when all you can see is your own pain and you believe that changing THEIR state is somehow a means of changing your own. That's then not about them, it's about you. Any action you take is REALLY intended to alleviate your own conflict even though you may feel like you're trying to alleviate theirs.
You ARE here to ease the world's burden but how can you truly diminish pain in the world when your OWN mind is still choosing to ADD to it? It's like a person who smokes a pack a day trying to help someone else give up smoking. It's just not possible to teach, to communicate to demonstrate to others what you are incapable of yourself. So the way in which we ease the world's burden is by healing ourselves, letting go of our own burden. That's all we need to do because in doing that we ARE healing the world.
You ARE here to ease the world's burden but how can you truly diminish pain in the world when your OWN mind is still choosing to ADD to it? It's like a person who smokes a pack a day trying to help someone else give up smoking. It's just not possible to teach, to communicate to demonstrate to others what you are incapable of yourself. So the way in which we ease the world's burden is by healing ourselves, letting go of our own burden. That's all we need to do because in doing that we ARE healing the world.
A mind in conflict and pain can ONLY teach that conflict and pain are real no matter what attempts it may make to alleviate it externally. A mind free of conflict and pain can ONLY teach that the escape from conflict and pain is possible simply by its very being. This is what the world truly needs.
Think of Jesus as an example. He simply held a healed perception of everyone and everything around him and this was enough (this was ALL that was needed) to awaken the same perception in others. This is how miracles were performed, how sickness was healed. By a simple shift in perception. This same shift in perception STILL resonates for us 2000 years later. Yes the human ego has distorted his image and message for its own reasons but the purity and simplicity of his example is still clear.
If you had NO fear, NO fear of suffering, NO fear of seeing suffering in others, NO belief in guilt, sin or attack, who would you be? Think about the freedom and the power that your mind in that state would have to teach others, to extend to others, to TRULY be present to others (instead of trying to manage its own conflict), not even through words or actions but by simply being a reflection of the POSSIBILITY of complete freedom from suffering of any kind. The best way to teach, to lead is to DEMONSTRATE.
This is not to say that showing kindness, being compassionate and trying to help when you can is wrong. It is not wrong to want to be of service where we can. But look HONESTLY at what you're really doing in these moments. Until you are aware of your own NEED to suffer you cannot effectively alleviate suffering in others, you cannot truly give them what they need because you're still trying to get what you believe you need. There will always be the secret agenda of reinforcing suffering in there somewhere, even if the external actions appear altruistic, giving, kind. For example, there are people who are always ministering to the sick not because they are TRULY giving but because it helps them feel less guilty, more valid, more innocent, more special, the list goes on. It's not wrong for them to be in this space but to call it completely selfless is not seeing it clearly. They NEED people in the role of sufferer so that they can play the role of savior. This is unconsciously reinforcing the desire for suffering, not truly trying to alleviate it.
Who would you be if there were no pain or suffering in the world? You wouldn't be the 'you' that you know now. As uncomfortable as your experience may be at least it's FAMILIAR. The truly uncomfortable thought is not that there is suffering in the world but the thought that without suffering in the world I wouldn't be myself, I couldn't be the self that I know. A painful self is still preferable to our fearful minds than a self we have no concept of. That feels like the complete loss of the self. In a pain free world you wouldn't know yourself, there would be nothing to "reflect" back at you your own pain. This is why we are subtly invested in keeping pain and suffering in the world. It allows us to maintain the painful yet familiar identities we are deeply invested in. Until you see yourself clearly you can never be sure that you are TRULY helping and not just reinforcing suffering in some subtle way that satisfies your own unconscious need.
The self that you would be if you were to heal your mind of the need to suffer, of the need to be in conflict would be the same self that Jesus embodied, that the Buddha embodied. It may seem difficult if not impossible to attain the level of clarity that Jesus or the Buddha held but why else would they have come but to demonstrate that it was possible? They didn't come for us all to stand around and clap at how wonderful they were. They came to show us that we are NO DIFFERENT from them. We just think we are.
Whether or not Jesus or the Buddha actually existed millennia ago as physical human beings is unimportant. In following their example, in being willing to train your mind towards forgiveness (of even the most seemingly horrible events, travesties and injustices) you will be shown that the way is possible. You will see the results of the willingness to reorient your thinking away from the belief in suffering, away from fooling yourself about your own selfishness. Your life, your mind will be opened up as you are willing to be taught a different way of being, of perceiving yourself and therefore the world. Looking honestly at your own selfishness, at your own need to reinforce the limitations or smallness of others as a means of managing your own feelings will make you more helpful, will make you more more honest. You will be able to better see where you are blocking yourself and where you're NOT being helpful. This is extremely useful information to have about yourself. It's not spiritual to pride ourselves on being unconditionally giving and loving. It's more truthful to be honest about the fact that we're NOT unconditionally giving that we are selfish and fearful. That is a more authentic expression of the desire for Truth, for growth, for healing. It's not easy, but it's possible. And the time's going to pass anyway. What better purpose to give it than to learn to escape from pain and guilt, suffering and fear? And to be able to be an example of this possibility to others?
