Why is it so difficult to end suffering?
When you speak about this it is so evident, but how is it that I cannot perceive this? My experience is suffering.
Mind has a huge momentum. We learned certain patterns in childhood, our parents learned them from their parents etc.. And this gets imbedded deeply in our psyche. Water can cut a canyon in the stone; this is how powerful repeated action is. So, it takes time for this conditioning to loosen, to fall apart. That is why spiritual practice is so important. Today we have a Neo-advaita movement in spirituality. They say that no effort is necessary to attain spiritual liberation because we already are free. And people go to those spiritual gatherings and listen to teachers repeating this over and over. I meet them a decade later and they are still the same. They are full of fear, running away from pain. It takes courage and determination to face oneself. The sun is always shining but it is covered by clouds, and one must dig through those clouds. A pearl is located deep inside of an ocean. So, it takes courage to reach there. Today our whole society is oriented towards instant solutions. So, it is the same with spirituality. But look at Buddha, Jesus, Lao-Tzu…how much they suffered, they gave their whole life for this, for the truth. So repeated practice is necessary, diving and opening to difficult feelings and emotion. Also, we need to look honestly at our life situation. How are we selling out – for money, for sex, for fame, for security. If one lives without integrity and honesty, no spiritual practice will be effective. On the contrary, it can be quite harmful, because it will provide us with energy to continue in the old ways. Every change takes courage because we are braking out of our comfort zone, and this produces immense fear. And the ultimate fear is the fear of disappearing, of losing ourselves. Therefore, they call this death and new birth. But what is born again is not something new but that which always exited. Everything that is new will become old one day. Only that which always existed will always continue to exist. And you are not separate from that. You are that. Tat tvam asi is a profoundly wise saying form Upanishads. It means you are that! You are that which all religion and spiritual teachers are speaking about. Such immense is your power. But you go and sell out for those small trivial things from this world.