by Don Lewis
This discussion of Suffering is based on a series of videos that aired between May 28 and June 8, 2010, as part of “Rev. Don’s Vlog”, a daily video blog that I do. The discussion began with a question from viewer Elvenbough, who asked “Why is there so much suffering in the world?”
Why is there so much suffering the world, you ask? Many different religions have wrestled with this idea, and perhaps I will contribute a couple of comments to it. We do talk about it a little bit in the various books that I’ve written. But I think that the most common cause of suffering is perspective. I personally don’t know anyone who has as many problems as people have never ha real problems. Very often they will go through the agonies of … horrible, horrible spasms of agony over situations other people would take in stride. Why? Because they’ve never experienced it before. Others who’ve experienced it look at it very differently. I think this is true for many aspects of human suffering – that its entirely a perspective of how it strikes the person and the level that they look at it from. Many years ago, when I was much younger, I watched talk shows – why? Because I had nothing better to do. But I used to watch Donahue quite a lot. And Donahue was a very good talk show, very thought provoking. And I believe that this was Donahue, it could have been the early days of Oprah. But they had a show on weight loss. And they had the mandatory weight loss guru. And it was a woman who had lost a huge amount of weight, and who was very much a cheerleader for weight loss – but she was also rather bitter. And she made the comment that no person who was overweight could possibly ever be happy. And I remember thinking, even at the time, “You know … there were people who lived through the concentration camps in Germany, went on to rebuild their lives and find happiness. There are people who are quadriplegic or otherwise severely disabled, who lead happy lives. What do you mean you can’t be overweight and be happy?” Well, obviously, she could not. And that was fine. Others can. Perspective. Level. I have done a lot of work over the years with the disability movement, partly because I spent some time myself being bedridden and unable to walk. One of the things I learned both through my own situation and through later interactions with the disability movement, is that you can be profoundly disabled and have a wonderful life and tremendous amounts of happiness. Similarly, you meet able bodied people who have no problems by comparison – who are miserable. Well, in many cases I would say that suffering is a matter of attitude – and to some extent you just have to make up your mind that you’re not going to, and that you’re going to resolve your situations as they come up. Now I say that like I practice it all the time – and of course, everyone has certain moments of suffering, sorrow, and depression. And you don’t always handle your problems as they come up – you don’t always handle them correctly – that’s part of being human. But I would still say that in many, many cases its how you look at it that determines whether it is or is not “suffering”.
Now, I want to move on to another subject, and that is the idea that it is through the challenges of life that we learn and grow, and that one of the primary purposes of life is to learn and grow. Therefore we must have challenges to motivate us to improve, to grow, to become better. And often when we face challenges we perceive them as suffering – especially if we struggle against the challenges. And that struggling against the learning experiences that are put in our path is a major cause of what people perceive as suffering. Sometimes arguably it really is [suffering], sometimes arguably its perception – but again it’s the difference between what they think their life should be and what their life really is. And perhaps about understanding that challenges are our benefactors – they bring us knowledge, they bring us experience, and indeed it’s the times that we are challenged that make us stronger, better, and more able to succeed. Even when we fail, if we learn from our experience, we are more able to succeed the next time. However many people, because they believe that they should always succeed, and they do not realize that challenges are learning experiences, will perceive that this is suffering, and terrible – and occasionally it is. But this I would say is the second reason for what we perceive as suffering in the world. In many cases, if instead of struggling against our challenges we would embrace them and grow willingly, we would have much less perception that we are suffering. Now out of my own life, I mentioned the other night that at one time I had injured my back very seriously, and was bedridden for a long time, and had a great deal of difficulty in recovery. And certainly this was not a pleasant experience, and there was much physical suffering involved. Looking back upon it however, it was also one of the greatest learning experiences of my life, and I have been a much stronger person ever since. And so I perceive that as not only something necessary in my life, but beneficial.
So, having talked about the role of perception and perspective in how people perceive suffering, and also having talked about the role of challenge in life and growth, let’s now talk about Karma. For many people, and I was initially taught this way myself, Karma is a matter of action and reaction. As I have grown and matured, my understanding of karma has changed, and during my lifetime the understanding of Karma endorsed by the Correllian Tradition has changed – largely due to Past Life work on the part of myself and the Lady Krystel, and other leading Correllian Priesthood. My current understanding of Karma – our current understanding of Karma, if you would – is less a matter of action and reaction than a matter of “attachment.” What that means is that when a soul encounters an experience which is particularly important to it -in any way – but usually especially in the sense of being traumatic or difficult, but also in the sense of being very pleasurable, it will “attach” to an aspect of that situation, and will afterwards be drawn back to it. As long as that attachment remains the Soul will be drawn back, until eventually they understand the nature of the attachment, learn the lesson involved in the attachment, and release it. And I have no doubt that this is the cause of a great deal of suffering our Karma, our Attachments. I believe that these things draw the soul back into situations, and variations upon situations many times throughout many lifetimes. And very often these situations will be traumatic, and will involve suffering. How do we deal with Karma? Well ultimately we must release it, we must resolve and heal it. One of the best ways to do this in my opinion is Soul Retrieval, which I talk about in various writings I have written and videos I have made. But I find it a very effective tool for working with Karmic Attachment. Karma, which is to say Attachment, is what brings us the situations of our lives, in an unconscious manner. Now of course we also create situations unconsciously, both before coming into life and all through our lives, and it is the act of taking conscious control of this process which we call “Magic.” But Karma – Attachment – is also part of that process of creating our world. We draw those things to us to which we are attached, we draw them into our lives. For many people the traumatic, the “suffering” things, are the things they are most attached to. Releasing them can be very hard. Many people I have known actually define themselves more in terms of their suffering than any other thing – in fact, I think it was Carolyn Myss, the New Age author, who described this as “Woundology.” People who live in their woundology, who are totally focused on how they have been hurt, how they’ve been damaged over the years, and never quite come to the point of letting this go. To me, the path of Magic, the path of Religion, the path of Metaphysics, is all about healing and releasing these attachments, releasing our woundology – not holding on to it.
Finally, I wanted to comment on the difference between objective and subjective reality. A number of people have made the comment that suffering is very often directly related to the actions of others, and this is certainly true. And when it is true those actions can be seen from one level as the cause of the suffering. This has to do with the level from which you are looking at reality. Reality, like all things, has a number of different levels that you can look at it from. From one level reality is very objective, its very external, it’s something that is very solid and must be interacted with as it is. From another level, a more spiritual level, reality is very fluid, it’s very subjective, and very much manifested from within, rather than experienced without. In metaphysics we try to more consciously create our reality from that inner level. Therefore when we speak of things like suffering, we do tend to look at the inner causes, because ultimately that is where we would see the root. Even when the apparent cause of things is external, we believe that it is attracted to us or created by us – or co-created by us, or any of a number of different ways of looking at it-because of inner issues which could arise in this life or be held over from previous ones. This does not mean by any means that that objective aspect of reality should be disregarded, rather it means that when we go trying to work with our spiritual self, work with our Higher Self, work with magic and trying to consciously create the world around us, that we must look for internal origins. Now in terms of the world around us, whatever the internal origins or our circumstances may be, there certainly are right and wrong ways to behave. And when people go around intentionally inflicting suffering on others, this is a wrong way to behave, regardless of whether there are also internal origins on the part of those receiving this treatment. That really has nothing to do with whether it’s the right or wrong way to behave. And the whole issue of right and wrong ways to behave also is one that is a very deep subject, because of course it’s very subjective. Living here in Salem I am very aware of the Salem Witch Hunts, because it is of course the big tourist industry. And you know, the people who were conducting these Witch Hunts certainly thought they were behaving in a right manner – although nobody today, for the most part, would think that. Looking either at what they did or how they did it we are rather amazed. Even more amazing is where they drew the line between what they considered to be Witchcraft and what they did not, because apparently a number of them were practicing kind of magic that today would come under that heading, and they seem to have had what we would consider rather eccentric definitions. Of course it was several hundred years ago, and definitions do change, ideas about what is right and wrong change. They also considered themselves very right when they persecuted the Quakers, who they persecuted mercilessly – in way that we would never approve of today or consider to be right. So ideas of right and wrong behavior are also very subjective and they do change with our social understandings. These things are part of what I consider to be, to use the general term, part of a social contract that we make with each other so that we can live together in peace, in terms of what we will and will not accept. And I think that having such a social contract is completely appropriate for society, as is constantly revising it. In terms of moral behavior and right and wrong action, I think that we need to be very conscious of such things. And of course within the Wiccan religion the Wiccan Rede, “An It harm None, Do As You Will,” is considered one of the primary statements by which we judge what we consider right and wrong action – that, and the general social contract of the society in which we live. So to recap our basic subject – yes, certainly, people’s wrong actions can inflict suffering upon others. That being so, we would say that there are still internal reasons which have brought these things into the other persons lives, and if they wish to deal with this it is not necessarily enough to deal with the external, objective cause of your suffering, but you must also deal with the patterns underlying – the metaphysical patterns underlying. Many of us have known – I certainly have known – of people who deal with one situation after another which when you look at them are nearly identical, going from one situation of suffering to the next. And every time they deal with the objective cause of it – and yet find themselves confronting exactly the same thing, because they have not dealt with the internal causes that are underlying it.