sufferings qna

[Guest guest]

Question: I suffer in both mind and body. From the day of my birth I

have never had happiness. My mother too suffered from the time she

conceived me, I hear. Why do I suffer thus? I have not sinned in this

life. Is all this due to the sins of past lives?

 

Maharshi: You say the mind and body suffer. But do they ask the

questions? Who is the questioner? Is it not the one that is beyond

both mind and body? You say the body suffers in this life and ask if

the cause of this is the previous life. If that is so then the cause

of that life is the one before it, and so on. So, like the case of

the seed and the sprout, there is no end to the causal series. It has

to be said that all the lives have their first cause in ignorance.

That same ignorance is present even now, framing this question. That

ignorance must be removed by jnana (spiritual knowledge).

 

`Why and to whom did this suffering come?' If you question thus you

will find that the `I' is separate from the mind and body, that the

Self is the only eternal being, and that it is eternal bliss. This is

jnana.

 

-- Ramana Maharshi

 

Hari Aum !!!