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Why is there suffering? Spinoza explains that suffering is pain and pain is a feeling of powerlessness, helplessness, feelings of inferiority, emptiness, and not knowing what to do. An inability in facing problems causes suffering. Man can only free himself when he begins to understand the nature of pain and suffering through strengthening his intelligence. Example: one of my students complained while she and her boyfriend are at a coffee shop that her boyfriend flirts with other women. She feels pain, hate and anger. She gets up and leaves, and is running away from her pain and discomfort. Her friend tells her that he is just having fun. Lori doesn’t like it, and why does she put up with it? Lori feels that she is lucky to have Ben as a boyfriend as she lacks confidence and feels that she is not that attractive. So, she puts up with his game.
How can Lori free herself from her suffering? First, I suggest that Lori keep a journal and write what do I want? What do I desire? We must look examine our wants and desires. Lori wants to have a fun time with Ben, she wants his undivided attention. She wants his love and affection. That seems simple enough; however, Ben does not pay attention to Lori and entertains himself by flirting. After we examine Lori’s desire, then I ask how do you feel when he flirts? Lori feels pain and what is pain? Pain is a feeling of powerlessness, helplessness and not knowing what to do. I suggest to Lori that she look at her pain, be with it and not run away from it. Facing pain is the first step of awakening our intelligence that wants truth and clarity. This intelligence is part of the mind that wants to understand and it is in the understanding that we gain a new sense of self and feel our power and clarity.
Hate automatically follows pain. The definition of hate, hate is pain with the idea of an external cause. Lori believes that Ben is the cause of her pain. What automatically follows hate is anger. The definition of anger, anger is desire whereby through hatred we are induced to remove or destroy the object of our hate. Are you beginning to see that we by no means willfully want to feel hate or anger? However, Nature expresses these laws: Such as: the law of necessity, the law of self-preservation, the law of inertia, the law of cause and effect and the law of following the path of least resistance. In reality, Ben has no freewill. I then ask Lori, even if she does not understand the importance of journaling to write in it anyway. Ben has no freewill and that I, and Lori, do not have freewill. I must emphasize the reality of what is taking place. We are beginning to see the truth. We all have learned to pretend nothing is wrong and we suffer or we go into rage. This is all automatic, it is our robotic nature because that is all we know how to deal with our pain. No one has demonstrated to you that you have an intelligence that is different from the ego intellect. We all are born into an environment that only knows about ego and it is important that our ego exist, it helps us learn how to function and exist in society; however, it is a passive sleep state and depends on memory. Ego basically lives in the past.
Our awakened intelligence is an active mind, it seeks knowledge and wants to understand that knowledge. It is creative and knows that clarity and truth is power, and the power is in our understanding. Gurdjieff talks about that man is asleep. However, Spinoza has given me tools to improve my understanding and I want to share them with you. Freedom from negative emotions is possible. And being blissfully happy is possible. But first we must come to know our nature.
