The Reiki Cafe 

I don't entirely get the need to find a reason for pain. It just is, as are many things in this life. We don't seem to have the same drive to find justification for joy: "I'm feeling really happy, I must have done something right."

Maybe overemphasis on finding a reason or meaning for unpleasant experiences is missing the point. Perhaps it's not "Why did I get lemons?" it's, "Oh, I got lemons...time to make lemonade."

A woman once said to me, "Why not you? You're not that special."

Indeed.

Bright blessings; Hail Eris!

goldenisis

Hi Goldenisis,

Bravo! In focusing on the 'why did this nasty thing happen', we often forget to acknowledge the wonderful things that do transpire.

Thank you for bringing this up!

With light and love,
Featherpoint

Thank you. I'm glad you liked that point. However...

Thus have I heard: A woman came to the Buddha carrying her dead child in her arms. She begged him, "Please bring my baby back to life. I know you can do it." The Buddha said "Bring me a mustard seed from a house where no one has ever died, and I will." The woman went from house to house to house, everyplace in the village...but in all of them someone had died at some time. She returned to the Buddha, understanding, and thanked him.

The Buddha didn't make a fuss over her child's death. He didn't say, "Oh you poor thing, how awful. What a tragedy!" Nor did he bring the child back to life. Why do you suppose that is?

What do you suppose underlies the need to find meaning in pain and suffering? Could it be ego, thinking that we're special enough to have had a "lesson" set up just for our benefit? What happens when we're not so special, and we accept that things happen just because they do? Like everyone dies...just because that's the way it is? Doesn't giving up the search for "why" free up a lot of energy for more constructive activities?

Bright blessings; Hail Eris!

goldenisis

Hi goldenisis,

I think what underlies much of the need to find meaning in pain and suffering, is merely the need to find or make meaning. Without it, or some hope of understanding or enlightenment, most of us wouldn't last 10 minutes in this world.

However I believe that many people who have a personal relationship with God, or other deity/entity/enlightened being, err in thinking that such a relationship means they must take everything that happens to them, as a personal singling out by that deity for reward and punishment. It just isn't that personalized, but what a very human assumption.

My two beans' worth of thoughts,

Namaste,

Lunarreikin

thought prevokes..unintentional or otherwise..who was or what was the egotistic act!

actualy the first egotistic act?

Otoharo!

goldenisis, right on the button!

finality

Otoharo!

Lunarreikin, You have brought up another factor, "very human assumption". Only on this planet! On planets with no ego that is not true. I have been listening to what everyone is saying and not singling you out. We have bought in to a thought that is not ours. It is the concensus reality as Lazaris calls it, or the ego system I have been calling it. It is a system and it encompasses concensus. We have agreed to it.

This is my picture of how it works. The first moment it dawns on us that we are not in joy, (as joy is the common denominator of life) we look for a ------------ who took it all away. We begin to blame. As we find one answer that does not bring back the joy. We look for another ----------- etc. All the while we are deflating more and more like a baloon, slowly loosing air. Finally, flat on the floor and seeming to sink down further, we conclude we are just human.

What happened to the air of joy that fills life? It has been cyphoned off. Who took it? The system.

That is how the system remains, and how it has grown to a point that can no longer be tolerated.

What is truly human, is the bubbling joy of life.

finality

It is interesting to consider this question. As an alcohol and drug counselor, I have often referred clients to what is called page 449. It is a reading about acceptance in the stories of recovering alcoholics in the appendix of The Big Book. In part it reads "and acceptance is the answer to all my problems today....nothing, absolutely nothing happens in God's world by mistake".

As a person with Christian beliefs, I do have sense that whatever I do to my brother and sister, I do to the sacred other since He is in all of us...

I ask to be forgiven as I forgive.....

What goes around comes around...

The buddhist sensibility in me knows that the attachment to the event is more potentially damaging to me than the event it self...

Lemons into lemonaid----life into Light

Blessed be-Infinite Reiki Blessings!

david isaiah

Dear Goldenisis,

Focusing on pain, but rarely giving joy it's equal attention...your point is well made and necessary to hear. I think that so many do look outside themselves for someone to blame when bad things happen to them. This shifts the focus even more...away from the pain itself to who can be blamed...and why...and why me.

I know that we create our own reality. When my life is in turmoil I have learned to look within to what I am projecting onto others, to what I am creating, to what lessons I need to learn. From every experience there is an opportunity to learn and to grow...and thus the lemonade is made from the lemons!

Namaste...

Lesley

I truly believe that we learn the hard way, and if it was not for the pains i have experienced i would not be the person I am today. Whenever bad things happen to me it is only after i get past it that i can make sense of it and realise i have learnt heaps from the situation and always come out of it a stronger person.

blessings

Moon
xxxx

I know there is a board for writings but i felt like this belongs here.

When you face the pain
it will make sense
it may be frightning
it may be intense
just trust in yourself
your angels and guides
they are there to help
you can confide.

Love and light

Moon
xxxx

Goldenisis,

Why not you?

Still if you seem to be caught in a pattern, maybe not asking why, or why not...but what do I have to learn from this. What am I doing to cause it, or what can I do to change it...are all good questions.

And there is another lesson here, as well. What do I have to forgive in others and myself, to let the pain go.
She is deciding to spend Christmas alone when there are people who want her. Is there any relationship to the amount of pain, and the closer it gets to Christmas each year? (I will probably get blasted on that assumption!)
This is about Pepi, but there are many others out there for whom this time of year is extrememly painful...(yes there is a corolation) And, excuse me, but there are also some people who have a temper and don't mind expressing it at the drop of the hat, even on this board.

Just my .02 worth.

Happy Holidays,

Priestess

Hi Goldenisis,

Acceptance. Understanding that sometimes sh*t happens and that is is not necessarily 'to you' is a hard thing for most people to accomplish. I have no doubt that is part of what we are all here for.

Is it ego that makes us want to find a reason for pain and suffering? Perhaps so in some circumstances. In others well, maybe it's not so much of finding a reason for the pain or suffering, but an acknowledgement that we have screwed up. LOL! As in 'why did I do that?'.

You bring an another interesting question to the surface. Do we too often feel we have a 'lesson' to learn? Perhaps the lesson (if there is one) is none other than learning to live without ego? Maybe it's not so much 'you wronged this person in a past life, now you have to pay for it', maybe it is 'learn to accept without casting blame'.

Doesn't giving up the search for "why" free up a lot of energy for more constructive activities?

Indeed it would. However, there will always be someone who is asking 'why' and searching for the reasons behind everything. Just as there will be those who acknowledge, accept, and then get on with life. Myself? I prefer the latter. It seems to be much easier! LOL!

With light and love,
Featherpoint

when making lemonade, is not to everyones individual taste how they make it..so in fact it may not just be lemons...

goldenisis,

/*\ Namaste :-}}

- not that special?? Depends on the perspective, I suppose

>:-}}

- as for me?? never felt a bit of compunction about taking a "well-day" off from work

>:-}}

- as for time alone? yes, lets be sure we are not projecting our own neuroses onto others

>:-}}

- reiki all around,

- all Joys of the Yule to you and yours,

all blessings,

Firekeeper

Hi Goldenisis

At times when there is pain, we dwell on it, we try and drag other people into it.
We all know people like it, and at times we are all like it ourselves. The poor me syndrome.
over the last year or so, I cold have quite easily have sat back and done the poor me thing. I had an hernia repaired, My mother had a hysterectomy and subsequent radio therpy and I lost my job. I have also had a big falling out with one of my closest friends. But at the end of the day, I put the last year or so down as a great time.
My hernia was fixed, my mother survived, I have made up with my friend, and made lots of new ones and , oneday I will get a job.:-)))

These little hiccups in our lives happen. we either let them take us over, or we deal with it and move on.

I choose to move on. What happened yesterday, happened. Nothing I can do can change that. What will happen tommorrow, will happen. What is happeneing now, well I have a smidgen of control over that. I choose to sit and write this (but by the time I press the post button, that will be the past, and I will have no control over it.(lol))

At one point in my life, I always got very depressed and anti social at this time of the year. I dealt with it. I go out and have fun. Ok life is not perfect, but it is life. I either let the negative(Finality explains this as ego.) The inner voices saying "No you can't" etc be in charge, or I let me be in charge.

Of course you explain all of this in one paragraph (LOL)"Perhaps it's not "Why did I get lemons?" it's, "Oh, I got lemons...time to make lemonade." .

I'm happy to. I made cookies today.

Hail Eris and all hail Discordia

Namaste

Rob

and to a question i asked earlier..that seems to have been eluded or stayed away from..( for whatever reason)...what was, or who was the first act of egotistic behaviour?

my path of enlightenment wil be made more fruitful...lol...

Hi Reikiangel

you ask
"and to a question i asked earlier..that seems to have been eluded or stayed away from..( for whatever reason)...what was, or who was the first act of egotistic behaviour? "

When do you mean? (LOL)
Do you think that one speck of bacteria somewhere way back in out distant past, may have started all this?.(LOL)
or do you mean something else?.

Depending on your views and understanding of ego, it could be said that it started on this planet, with the first time that someone or thing with brain was first aware of their/it's own exsistance ;-)))

Out there in the big universe, probally a simuler situation.

If you believe in a God. Could it have been him??(or her or it)

Namaste

Rob

Hi all, Just wanted to say,it is easy when you are not in pain to think or give advise to someone that is in pain. And wonder why they just don't get it. I don't believe that anyone on the site that has suffered alot of physical pain over and over again can say they never blamed someone or something for it. I think when someone has experinced alot of physical pain in there life they would do that because they are just searching for anyway to feel good again, get rid of the pain. They become desperate. They go to doctors, and get no relief. You don't just accept pain, in anyway. Sure it is easy to accept Joy, it feels good and has no physical pain to it, unless you don't feel you deserve to feel Joy. All I am saying is that it is not that easy to just accept it. If it is a learning experience then we try to figure out what the may be and that can drive you crazy to. In the end we just want to feel good, and it sounded like to me that Pepi is just about at her wits end. Never judge anyone until you have walked a mile in there shoes. I live with a person that has experienced pain just about all of his life. There is not a pain killer out there that helps him any longer. I have to say that he has never blamed anyone for it, but I know he would sure blame someone if it would make the pain go away. I hope this doesn't seem harsh, I don't want it to. Some of us just arn't far enough along in spirituality to accept pain.
Love and Light to all
Sherry

hi rob, i did not go into detail of which existence. The place i meant was to do with the planet that we live on ;-)

Amanda

I agree that we cannot judge anothers physical pain. Physical pain is overpowering and cuts through all ideas.

The term leaning experience is thrown around alot in a very unhelpful manner. In physcial pain we can gather some solace from the way it cuts through and quietens the mind. I have rarely been in constant physical pain. But when I have I know that it takes over the body and no amount of acceptance can overcome it.

I have freinds who live with constant pain. they are admirable people, who work on not letting the pain get to them emotionally.

There is a photo of a tiben monk who set himself on fire as a form of protest. He sits in lotus position, flames consuming him, and with his face in complete serenity. It has taken this man a lifetime to reach this state of meditation. He was probably in terrible pain, he has learnt only self-knowledge and dicipline.

Pain does teach us. it lets us understand our anger and explore feeling able to take care of the self even when feeling completely helpless. People often feel that they should be able to 'handle' things they are growing through. Infact a perosn in terrable pain who is rageing and tearful is 'dealing' with it just perfectly as they need to.

As for it being easier to accept Joy then it is pain. i would disagree. I think that a person who is truelly able to experience joy and accept it totaly is quite as remarkable as someone who can do the same with pain.

Namaste

Much love and light to all those having difficulties on their continuing journey.

Shanta

Hi Amanda

Then I would say, it started when something decided it was aware of it's own exsistance.

If you look at the animal kingdom, there always seems to be a leader of the pack, but then is that ego or instinct, and are they related?

Namaste

Rob

Otoharo!

reikiangel, in answer to your question about the origin of ego, it occurred sometime since 35,000 years ago. It began small of course and took about 500 years to actually come about. It was allowed to remain as an experiment to see what its outcome would be. The experiement became so destructive to us that Earth made the choice: there will be no ego in the new world that will coincide with the onset of her new spiritual advancement. We have time now to rid ourselves of our own ego and the influence of the ego system so that we can remain with earth in the new world. Maybe this will be the time that Jesus returns. Maybe it will not be. But ego is out, never-the-less. Ego began with hu,mans was made by humans. It has been allowed by the Holy but not created by the Holy.

finality