Suffering and Healing in the Hindu Tradition
by Umapathi R. Cattamanchi
At the age of seventy, an Indian Sage, Bhagawan Sri Ramana Maharshi, learned that a malignant tumor had developed and grown at an alarming rate in his body. As his devotees pleaded with him to seek a cure, he refused and instead sought to alleviate the grief of the devotees through his teaching. He said, “They take this body for Bhagawan and attribute suffering to him. What a pity! They are despondent that Bhagawan is going to leave them and go away, but where would I go? I am here.”
Suffering and pain can be physical or mental. Illness, injury, old age, fear of death, loss of a loved one, unfulfilled desires or expectations and dissatisfaction with the present circumstances in life may all cause suffering and pain. Fear of death is the greatest of all. Suffering is not limited to human beings. Physical suffering and fear of death exists in all living creatures. But only man, the crown jewel of God’s creation, is endowed with the faculties of mind and intellect. He worries, tries to reason, goes through mental agony and anguish and becomes miserable when faced with unwanted situations in life. At the same time man alone has the capability to enquire into the cause and nature of suffering and find relief.
Hindu philosophy suggests that ignorance is the root cause of all suffering. Man suffers because he identifies himself with his body and mind and does not recognize his real nature which is divine. Swami Vivekananda summarizes the teaching of Vedanta, the philosophy of Hinduism, in a few lines:
Each soul is potentially divine.
The goal of life is to realize the divine within.
Realize this truth and then you are perfectly free.
Doctrines and dogmas, rituals and books, temples and churches, all these are but means to realize that divinity within.
Hindu scriptures declare that this whole universe consists of matter and spirit, the physical and spiritual aspects of the Divine. Earth, water, fire, air, space and all the bodies made up of these elements belong to the lower physical nature of the Divine, the matter. The higher spiritual nature, the spirit, the consciousness, sustains everything in the creation. Srimad Bhagavad Gita, the scriptural text of the Hindus, in Chapter 13 explains the nature of the human body and its relationship to God. The body is made up of the five elements, the mind with its feelings and emotions, the intellect with its power of discrimination, and the whole objective universe is the field, the Khsetra, which is nothing but the matter. The only thing beyond all these is the Knower of the field, Kshetrajna… the Spirit, which is Pure Consciousness. In all the living beings, matter (Sat) and spirit (Chit) coexist. This spirit in human beings conditioned by the body-mind complex, gets attached to its nature and becomes the ‘ego’ and goes through all the experiences of suffering and happiness. But Brahman, which is our real nature, is Ananda… Bliss. Thus the nature of the ultimate Reality, God, is Sat-Chit-Ananda, Existence-Awareness-Bliss.
Man lives the events of each day mechanically. As a child, he is occupied with playing and eating. Later in life he is busy learning the ways of livelihood, developing relationships, earning and accumulating wealth. He rarely questions whether the purpose of his existence is to go on struggling to satisfy his desires till his death or whether there is a higher purpose.
Every embodied person passes through the states of childhood, youth, old age, death and then rebirth. This human evolution goes on birth after birth until he realizes the true nature of the immortal Self within. The dualities of pleasure and suffering, joy and grief, good fortune and misfortune are an inevitable part of life. “The world is a hospital,” Sri Ramakrishna said, “where we are all being treated and made whole. No one can be discharged from the hospital without being fully cured.”
Hindu scriptures provide different methods to deal with suffering. First, Bhakti Yoga, the Yoga of Devotion, second, Karma Yoga, the Yoga of Action, and third, Jnana Yoga, the Yoga of Knowledge.
When confronted with helpless or hopeless situations, man turns to a higher power, God. He completely surrenders and gradually develops faith in the Supreme. Swami Sivananda of Rhishikesh says, “Faith in God elevates the soul, purifies the heart, and leads to the vision of God. Faith is the eye that sees the Lord and the hand that clings to Him. Faith is power. Faith is strength. Faith is abundant energy.” With faith comes strength to accept his suffering as the will of God. A Hindu who practices Bhakti Yoga surrenders to God’s will and seeks God’s Grace.
Karma Yoga is purifying the mind by means of work. “Your right is to work only; but never to the fruits thereof. May you not be motivated by the fruits of actions; nor let your attachment be towards inaction.” This is the doctrine of Karma Yoga. It means that work should be done in a spirit of surrendering the fruits to the Lord. Result oriented action will cause anxiety. Mental energy is wasted and frustration sets in. Life becomes miserable. Equanimity of mind under all circumstances is yoga. In success and failure, in pleasure and pain, happiness and distress one should learn to maintain the balance of mind. If one does action one without attachment, renouncing the fruits of action will have a balanced state of mind. He will not reap the fruits of his action. Such an action will lead to the purification of his heart. In tranquility all sorrows are destroyed and all suffering ends.
Jnana Yoga is realization of the Self with the knowledge of the true nature of the Self and the world. Self is changeless and always exists. Phenomenal world is ever changing and therefore, it is unreal. Just as rope is mistaken for a snake in the dark, the ever changing world is mistaken to be permanent due to ignorance. Just as the snake in the rope vanishes when the rope is seen in the light, the true nature of the Self is realized with the dawn of the knowledge. The Self pervades all the objects like space. Even so, if the bodies and all other objects perish, the Self that pervades them cannot perish. The Soul exists in the three periods of time (past, present and future). There is life beyond. Just as there is no interruption in the passing of childhood into youth and youth into old age in this body, so also there is no interruption by death in the continuity of the ego. Just as the Self passes unchanged from childhood to youth and youth to old age, so also the Self passes unchanged from one body to another. “Just as a man casts off worn-out clothes and puts on new ones, so also the embodied Self casts off worn-out bodies and enters others which are new.
For certain is death for the born, and certain is birth for the dead.” Birth and death are unavoidable and therefore one should not grieve over an inevitable matter. Pleasure and pain, heat and cold are the result of contact of the senses with the objects. They are impermanent. One has to endure them and develop balanced state of mind. The more one is able to identify oneself with the immortal all pervading Self, the less one is affected by the pairs of the opposites.
In a nutshell, the Enlightened who are free from egoism are not affected by Karma. The worldly minded person who works with egoism and expectation of fruits is tainted by works. They are forced to experience the fruits of their actions and to take birth again and again. Acceptance of suffering is the only way to transcend suffering and live in peace.
“With the Lord in thy heart take refuge with all thy being; by His grace thou shalt attain to the supreme peace and the eternal status.” This is the promise of the Lord.
Om! Asatoma Sadgamaya
Tamasoma Jyotirgamaya
Mrityorma Amritamgamaya
Om! Shanti! Shanti! Shantih!
O, Lord! Lead me from unreal to the Real,
from darkness to the Light,
from mortality to the Immortality.
O, Lord! Let there be Peace within! Let there be
Peace all around! Let there be Peace all over!
