An Opportunity for Growth

[Guest guest]

Birth is a painful experience for mother and child. Growth almost

always involves some suffering. As we grow older, we learn many

difficult lessons. Uncertainty and mistakes inevitably accompany new

experience. However, that is no reason to avoid new experience. The

pain of growth yields the satisfaction of progress. The comfort of

stagnation gives way to the odor of decline.

 

By suffering the consequences of incorrect action, we eventually

understand what gives lasting joy and what causes pain. We learn to

appraise our actions and motivations more realistically. Material

values recede and transpersonal values gain in importance. We see

that through suffering we learn compassion and develop a sweet

tempered disposition. The needs of others grow in importance as our

own become less important. The experience of pain and loss adds to

our sweetness.

 

" The Sugarcane should welcome the cutting, the hacking and the

crushing, the boiling and the straining to which it is

sujected;without these ordeals,the cane would dry up and make no

tongue sweet. So,too,man must welcome trouble,for that alone brings

sweetness to the spirit within " Baba

 

When we suffer pain, it is usually for our benifit. If we are given a

chance to pay our misdeeds and take it we are truly attending to our

spiritual growth. Grace prescribes the cure;pain is the taste of the

medicine.

 

" If a mother has two sons and one of them is sick, she will give the

sick son only bitter medicine, while she may give the other son

anything that he may ask for. If she gives bitter medicine to one son

and sweets to the other, it is not because the mother likes one son

more than the other. The mother realizes that it is for the good of

the sick child to take bitter medicine, and so she gives him bitter

medicinem, but not because she likes him less " Baba

 

 

Next.....Nearness to God (thats our Saima)