Contentment, Love and God-Realization

Most of man’s suffering is self-created through his ‘un-governed desires’ and ‘impossible demands’. All this is unnecessary for self-fulfillment!

If man becomes ‘desireless’ and ‘contented,’ he will be free from his SELF-INFLICTED suffering. His ‘imagination’ will not be constantly harassed by feverish reaching out toward things that really do not matter, and he will be established in unassailable peace.

When an individual is thus ‘contented,’

• he does not require any solutions to problems, because the problems that confront worldly persons have disappeared.
• He has no problems, therefore he does not have to worry about their solution.
• For him, the complexities of life do not exist because his life becomes utterly simple in the state of desirelessness.

When a person understands ‘desires’ as being merely the bondage of the spirit, he decides to give them up; but even when VOLUNTARY, this is often a painful process.
  The suffering that comes from purging the mind of its many desires exist even when the soul may be ready to renounce them because– this decision of the soul goes counter to the ‘inclination of the ego-mind’ to persist through its habitual desires. ‘Renunciation of desires’ curtails the very life of the ‘ego-mind’! Therefore it is a process invariably accompanied by acute suffering. But such suffering is wholesome for the soul because it LIBERATES the soul from bondage!

Not all suffering is bad. When suffering leads to the eternal happiness of ‘desirelessness,’ it should be regarded as a blessing in disguise.
  Just as a patient may have to suffer an operation at the hands of a surgeon in order to free himself of persistent and malignant pain, the soul has to welcome the suffering of renouncing desires in order to be free from the recurrent and unending suffering caused by them.

The suffering the soul has in ‘renouncing desires’ may be very acute, but it is endured because of a sense of GREATER FREEDOM that comes when ‘desires’ gradually disappear from the mind.

If an infected swelling on the body is opened and allowed to drain, it gives much ‘pain’, but also much relief. Similarly, the suffering from ‘renunciation of desires’ is accompanied by the compensating relief of progressive initiation into the limitless life of freedom and happiness.

The simple life of freedom and happiness is one of the most difficult things to achieve. Man has complicated his life by the growth of ‘artificial’ and ‘imaginary’ desires and returning to simplicity amounts to the “renunciation of desires”.

‘Desires’ have become an essential part of the ‘limited self’ of man with the result that he is reluctant to abandon them unless the lesson that ‘desires are born of ignorance’ is impressed upon his ‘mind’ through acute mental suffering.

When an individual is confronted with GREAT SUFFERING through his desires, he understands their true nature. When such suffering comes, it should be welcomed!

Suffering may come in order to eliminate further suffering.  A thorn may be taken out by another thorn, and suffering by suffering.

‘Suffering’ has to come when it is of use in purging the soul of its ‘desires’, it is then as necessary as medicine to a sick person.

However, ninety-nine percent of ‘human suffering’ is not necessary. Through ‘OBSTINATE IGNORANCE’ people inflict suffering upon themselves and their fellow beings; and then, strangely they ask, “Why should we suffer?”

Suffering is often symbolized by scenes of war: devastated houses broken and bleeding limbs, the agonies of torture and death.

But war does not embody any special suffering; people really suffer all the time. THEY SUFFER BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT SATISFIED – they want more and more.

War is more an outcome of the universal suffering of dissatisfaction than an embodiment of representative suffering. Through their greed, vanity and cruelty, people bring untold suffering upon themselves and others.

People are not content to create suffering only for themselves but are relentlessly jealous in creating suffering for their fellow beings.
  Everyone seeks his own happiness even at the cost of the happiness of others, thus giving rise to ‘cruelty’ and ‘unending wars.’ As long as he thinks only of his own happiness, he does not find it. In the pursuit of his own ‘individual happiness’, the ‘limited self’ becomes accentuated and burdensome.
  When someone is merely selfish, he can – in the false pursuit of SEPARATE and EXCLUSIVE happiness, become utterly ‘callous’ and ‘cruel’ to others; but this RECOILS upon him by poisoning the very spring of life. Loveless life is most unlovely; only a life of love is worth living.

If an individual is desireless, he will not only eliminate much suffering that he causes others, but also much of his own SELF-CREATED suffering.
  Mere desirelessness, however, cannot yield positive happiness, though it protects one from self-created suffering and goes a long way toward making ‘true happiness’ possible.

‘True happiness’ begins when one learns the art of right adjustment to other persons, and right adjustment involves ‘self-forgetfulness’ and ‘love.’ Hence arises the spiritual importance of transforming a ‘life of the limited self’ into a ‘life of love.’

‘Pure love’ is rare because, in most cases, ‘love’ becomes adulterated with SELFISH MOTIVES which are superstitiously introduced into the consciousness by the operation of accumulated ‘bad sanskaras.’ It is extremely difficult to purge the consciousness of the ‘deep-rooted ignorance’ that expresses itself through the idea of ‘I’ and ‘mine.’
  For example, even when a person says that he loves his beloved, he often only means that he possessively wants the beloved to be with him. The feeling of “I” and “mine” is notably present even in the ‘expression of love.’

If a man sees his own son wearing tattered clothes, he does all that he can to give him good clothes and is anxious to see him happy. Under these circumstances, he would consider his own feeling toward his son as that of pure love. But, in his quick response to the distress of his own son, the part played by the idea of ‘mine’ is by no means inconsiderable. If he happened to see the son of some stranger on the street wearing tattered clothes, he would not respond as he had in the case of his own son.
  This shows that though HE MAY NOT BE FULLY CONSCIOUS of it, his behaviour toward his own son was, in fact, largely selfish. The feeling of “mine” is there in the background of the mind, though it can be brought to the surface only through searching analysis. If his response to the son of a stranger is the same as to his own, then only can he be said to have ‘pure’ and ‘selfless’ love.

‘Pure love’ is not a thing that can be forced upon someone, nor can it be snatched away from another – by force. It has to MANIFEST from within with unfettered spontaneity. What can be achieved through BOLD DECISION is the removal of those ‘factors’ that prevent the manifestation of ‘pure love.’

The ‘achievement of selflessness’ may be said to be both DIFFICULT and EASY. It is difficult for those who have NOT DECIDED to step out of the limited self, and it is easy for those who have decided. In the absence of firm determination, attachments connected with the ‘limited self’ are too strong to break through.

But if a person resolves to set aside ‘selfishness’ at any cost, he finds an easy entry into the domain of ‘pure love.’

The ‘limited self’ is like an external coat worn by the soul. just as an individual may take off his coat by the exercise of will, through bold, decisive step – he can make up his mind to shed the ‘limited self’ and get rid of it once and for all.
  Such a decision can be born in his mind only when he feels an intense longing for pure love. Just as someone who is hungry longs for food, an aspirant who wants to experience ‘pure love’ must have an INTENSE LONGING for it.

When the aspirant has developed this intense longing for pure love, he may be said to have been prepared for the intervention of a Perfect Master– who through ‘proper direction’ and ‘necessary help’ ushers him into the state of ‘divine love.’ Only the Master can awaken pure love through the “divine love” that he imparts; there is no other way. Those who want to be consumed in love should go to the eternal flame of love!

Love is the most significant thing in life. It cannot be awakened except by coming into contact with the “Incarnation of love.” Theoretical brooding on love will result in weaving a THEORY about love, but heart will remain as empty as before.

Love begets love; it cannot be awakened by any mechanical means!

When ‘true love’ is awakened in the aspirant, it leads him to the ‘realization of God’ and opens up the unlimited field of lasting and unfading happiness. The happiness of God-realization is the goal of all creation! It is not possible for a person to have the slightest idea of that inexpressible happiness without actually having the experience of Godhood.
  The idea that the worldly have of ‘suffering’ or ‘happiness’ is entirely LIMITED. The real happiness that comes through realizing God is worth all the ‘physical’ and ‘mental’ suffering in the universe. Then all suffering is as if it had never been.

Those who are not God-realized can control their minds through ‘yoga’ to such an extent that nothing makes them feel ‘pain’ or ‘suffering,’ even if they are buried alive or thrown into boiling oil. But though the advanced yogis can brave and annul any suffering, they do not experience the “happiness of realizing God”.

When one becomes God, everything else is zero. The happiness of God-realization, therefore cannot suffer curtailment by anything!

The ‘happiness of God-realization’ is self-sustained, eternally fresh and unfading, boundless and indescribable. It is for this happiness that the world has sprung into existence.

–    Meher Baba

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Source ::
Discourses, Pg:: 394-398
© AMBPPCT, Ahmednagar, Maharashtra, India/Bharat