By Esther Veltheim

People frequently ask me why there is pain and suffering in the world. Firstly, I would suggest that questions about what is happening in the world are mere distractions. The real “problem” is what you consider personal pain and personal suffering.

If you didn’t consider pain and suffering personal, you wouldn’t care what was happening in the world. This sounds harsh, but think of a time when you were totally content and at peace. Did you worry about the world? Probably you were more inclined to see the positive, uplifting images the world presented to you.

The cares you have about the world are worries and have nothing to do with the heart. When you feel bad you project your feelings outward so as to distract yourself. The world is just a reflection of your own attitudes.

As long as your mind is full of value judgments about good, bad, right, and wrong, you suffer. As long as you want only good feelings, you are in a constant mode of struggle.

What constitutes right and wrong in your mind is rarely a universal paradigm. If everyone put down on paper their view of what world peace would look like, you would have millions of different views. This means that if your view of world peace were to materialize, not everyone would experience it as peaceful.

If you look back over your life, you will see that your attitudes have changed frequently. What once seemed acceptable and valid suddenly made no sense to you. Then as you grew older you may have readopted your initial beliefs. Each time you held a thought about “This is how it is,” you believed you knew an absolute truth, that was absolutely right.

Looking back over your life, you realize that your own personal absolutes have changed frequently. Your idea of what would constitute world peace today is probably very different to the prescription you would have had for world peace as a teenager. This also tells you that all judgments are impermanent and illusory.

The desire for peace and an end to suffering and pain in the world is a reflection of your own attitudes. You suffer because of these attitudes, not because of what is going on in the world. External suffering simply reminds you of your own personalized pains. Rather than dealing with them, it is much easier to distract yourself in “fixing” everything—and everyone—around you.

When you were a tiny infant, your mind wasn’t full of judgments about good and bad. Pain may have been there, but you didn’t think, “I have to stop this.” Actions such as crying, laughing, and even struggling happened spontaneously. Despite physical discomfort, the newborn infant just Is, with no judgments about anything. There, within struggle and pain, the infant still experiences peace of mind. The peace wasn’t caused by the mind, but by the absence of rigid judgments. This peace underlies anything that might be happening to the child or in its environment.

When judgments fill the mind, peace is a foreign experience to you. If you understand this, you will understand that circumstances are not the cause of what you feel. Your beliefs and attitudes determine what and how you feel. As Ramesh wrote in one of his books, “Thoughts are the tension.” What he was talking about is involvement with thoughts.

The reason the jnani experiences life to be underlain by peace is because there is no involvement. He is not identified with any experience and doesn’t think of any experience as personal. If the jnani is injured, there is pain—perhaps tremendous pain—but it is merely experienced. The jnani may take practical steps, such as taking a painkiller, but he does not NEED anything to change. All experiences are witnessed impersonally when they arise, and the subsiding of them is also an impersonal occurrence.

The jnani doesn’t care about anything. That is, there is no worry, no involvement, no need to change anything. What happens happens, and if practical steps are taken to change something, these actions are not fuelled by worry or need.

It is a myth that the jnani only experiences peace. Because the jnani still has a body that interacts with other bodies, he or she still experiences all the vicissitudes of life. Peace underlies all experiences, but this doesn’t mean that physical pain and suffering doesn’t happen.

Because there is no need to censor anything, everything is experienced fully. Just imagine experiencing pain, anger, or grieving fully. You have probably never done this because you are always at the ready, trying to stop what you don’t like.

When you are not involved in rejecting and clinging, nothing matters. There isn’t any need to change what is as it is. Physical and emotional pain and suffering aren’t the “problem” you are concerned with. The problem is your attitude about them.

I recall, when judgment and censorship first fell away, there were those who seemed to watch my every move. If anger arose, they would raise their eyebrows and question why. If grieving happened, they couldn’t understand it’s intensity. “Why do you react even more strongly now, if you are not identified with anything? It sure looks as if you are involved!”

It is your nature to react, and the jnani still has reactions to life. If a loved one dies, grieving happens. If someone kills his dog, anger will probably arise. Sometimes it looks as if there is involvement because thoughts about a situation arise in quick succession. Then corresponding emotions also arise in quick succession. Outwardly it may look as if there is an over-reaction. What is happening is that thoughts and emotions arise, but are not pursued. The quick succession of uncensored thoughts shows itself in uncensored emotions. Externally it may appear as if there is involvement, but all there is Is uncensored, deep and full experiencing. This is a reaction, but not an over-reaction.

If you are craving “enlightenment” because you think it means an end to life’s ups and downs, think again. The jnani isn’t a vegetable that no longer experiences anything. The jnani simply Knows that no experience is personal and so the habit of censoring experiences is absent.

When you don’t take things personally, you know that emotions can still arise. You watch a romantic movie, all the while knowing it is just a story and not real, but you cry. When the movie is over you might even say, “I love a good cry.” Have you ever wondered why horror movies are so popular? It’s because people know they are not real, and so it gives them an arena in which they can experience extreme fear fully.

Intuitively you recognize that it feels good to fully experience an emotion, whatever it may be. This is because it makes you feel alive. You don’t think about it in these terms perhaps, but when emotions are allowed to be fully felt, you feel more vital than ever. If you pay attention at such times you will recognize that underlying the emotion there is peace. In the absence of censorship, spontaneity of actions feels peaceful.

The jnani Knows that the ever-changing images the world presents are not Real. He Knows that no circumstance affects or changes who “he” Is in any way. So why reject or cling to anything? Why care about anything being a certain way?

It’s only because you take everything personally that you struggle to understand why there is pain and suffering. If I told you why these experiences exist, would it make them any easier for you to bear? You might think, “Yes, if I knew the reason, I could cope with them better.”

This is precisely what you would do—you would cope. Nothing would have changed because you are always just coping. You aren’t dealing head on or fully with anything.

So often on TV we hear stories about people being rescued from drowning or similar dangers. The rescuer will often say such things as, “I didn’t think twice. I just jumped in and did what needed doing.” They didn’t stand there thinking, “I wonder why this is happening,” “I wonder what I should do.” They acted— practically, efficiently, and with no mental involvement. They didn’t take action while pondering, “I wonder if I will succeed.”

When the need to understand is absent, actions are always efficient and practical. If someone jumps into raging waters to save another person, you will probably describe them as caring. This is a very different caring compared to the worrying kind you are talking about when you “care about the state of the world.”

The jnani cares about nothing, and is totally present to all happenings. You care about everything and are totally self-involved. You may think caring about starving children in Ethiopia describes altruism. If your mind is full of judgments and  questions about this situation, it isn’t an indication of altruism. It signifies that you are involved in needing to change what is, because you think it is “bad.”

When I see suffering going on in the world, thoughts still arise about it. The mind hasn’t emptied of judgments— thoughts describe judgments and the mind IS thoughts. The difference is that the jnani doesn’t pursue or dwell on any thought. Judgments arise, but they subside with equal ease. If the thought to take a certain action arises, the action may happen and it may not. If steps are taken to deal with anything, there is no thought or rigid expectation of outcome.

Planning still happens, but there is no need for any particular results. If I arrange a plane flight and it’s cancelled, the thought may arise, “Bummer, now I’m going to be late.” This thought isn’t pursued and no worry arises. Practical steps are taken to deal with what is as it is. The circumstances are not ideal, but no thoughts existed as to ideals in the first place.

I would prefer to live in a comfortable home, surrounded by my family and animals. If I had to live on the streets, this would be less comfortable, but it would be experienced for what it is—a new experience.

If you live in the world experiencing everything that presents itself fully, no experience needs avoiding. Actually, to experience fully eliminates the notion of avoiding.

It is only because you judge some experiences bad and some good that you do not experience constant underlying peace. While you are rejecting and clinging—that is all you know: the struggle between one judgment and another.

While you are “caring” about the state of the world, or your own state, focus is split between what you want and what is not. Meanwhile, what Is is experienced through distorted mental filters.

See, feel, touch, taste, and listen fully, and there is no opportunity for judgment to get in the way. Judgments may still arise, but there will be no time to embellish on them because you are fully present—Being. This is because your essential nature IS Seeing, Feeling, and all manner of Experiencing. Your manifest appearance IS Experiencing, or Consciousness.

Discover why you need to change what is. Explore why you want things to be a certain way. Is it because you “care” so much about others, or is it because YOU don’t like the feelings you are having?

Where “caring” and fearing is, altruism is not. When “caring,” fearing, and the need to fix is happening, peace is absent. The only suffering that really concerns you is the experience of suffering “you” are having. Be clear on this and you will stop distracting yourself with psuedo-caring for “others.”

This may sound like a recipe for selfishness, but selfishness is just another judgment. It describes doing what you want with disregard for others. I’m not saying disregard others; I am suggesting that you look at the attitudes you have about them.

If you have any strong ideas about anyone, it doesn’t change them. You may feel good if you are with someone you think is “really nice.” You may feel bad if you are around someone you judge to be “horrible.” Other people don’t cause these feelings; your attitudes about them do.

Investigate what you think is important; such as “an end to suffering,” “an end to poverty,” “an end to struggle.” Ask yourself why these concepts are so important to you. You will find that they are “important” because they give you trains of thought to pursue that “fill the void.”

What is not understood is that this “void” is empty of concepts. This means that it is beyond the conceptual self and precisely the “place” the seeker is—misguidedly—aiming for.

 While you are aiming for peace, you are focused toward what is not and how you want it to be. These “thoughts are the tension” that keep you obsessed with what seems lacking. Meanwhile, you experience what Is through the distorting filters of your fears and desires.

All these words are so well summed up by Kris Kristofferson. “Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.” Stop trying to understand. Be fully with what is, and there You are—Experiencing.