Suffering - Path to knowledge

One cannot know truth without first knowing what nontruth is. Spiritual progress is possible by first experiencing all varieties of nontruth. Once you have completety realized what truth is not, you are then ready to experience truth. Truth does not make itself available to anyone who is not ready for it. One who is filled with assumptions of nontruth cannot see truth even if it is right in front of him. Hence, these assumptions must be destroyed, by experience of non-truth. The experience of non-truth is manifested as suffering. Awareness during the experience of non-truth will ensure learning and internalization of what non-truth is.

Suffering is an indicator that our assumption is not true. When we experience suffering, the sensible thing to do is to modify our approach and test the assumptions on the basis of which the approach was chosen. To those who are clean and pure, suffering is experienced clearly and immediately. To those who are deep in denial, suffering is experienced in a more marked manner and with a time delay, thus making it more difficult for them to adapt and move in the right direction. The root of suffering is ignorance. When we continously adapt based on the signals we receive through suffering, we gradually remove the thorns of ignorance, till, we become free from suffering by acquiring perfect knowledge. The path to knowledge is by realization, and the manifestation of realization is suffering. Great masters like Christ and Buddha had to experience great suffering before they could transcend it.

There is no shortcut to knowledge. Suffering has to be experienced before it can be transcended.