SUFFERING: The CHILD of SEPARATION

By John Maerz BA LMT

     Before we’re born we are in a place that’s warm, comfortable, protected and nourished through no conscious effort of our own. The moment we’re slapped on our behind (if they still do that) and take our first breath we are separated from that environment. We are immediately aware that something is missing and an urge to return to the earlier state is born also. The comparison of the memory of where we were to where we are is our first conscious experience with the polarities that operate within physical and feeling life. For the rest of our life we will strive to find that “place” where no difference is perceived. Obviously, a newborn is unable to communicate this phenomena since they, as of yet, have no language. But, as the child grows and learns and language is developed, the nearest thing that can be descriptive of this missing or separative quality is called a want. Webster’s speaks of want as “to be lacking or absent, as a part or thing assumed necessary for completeness.” After birth everything we do as adults, for the rest of our lives, is geared toward eliminating that feeling of separation. It exists on all levels; physical, emotional, mental and spiritual or anywhere we can conceive of a desire for something we feel the absence of. We can feel separated from money, dignity, our health, food, water, privacy, possessions, loved ones, creative ability and even from the opportunity to ease another’s feeling of separation. Anything that we want, desire or need has, as its root, a feeling of being separated from something. Hence, separation creates desire. It has, also, been said that desire is the root of all suffering. Webster’s quotes suffering as, “to undergo, be subjected to, or endure pain, distress, injury, loss, or anything unpleasant.” Therefore the enduring of the separation from anything that we consider necessary to be whole or healthy can be considered suffering. Yet, in these days and times we don’t talk as much of suffering as much as we tone down the intensity of the term by calling it “stressed out.” Stress comes from the root word “district” which means to “stretch out” or “the division of an area.” Again, we’re looking at a division or separation from what we feel we need for completion. Instead of “stretched out” we even call it “stressed out.” Colloquially, it seems to be a softer and more widely accepted expression than the severe word “suffer.” It is also widely accepted that everyone, in some way, is “stressed out.” It is impossible to be in the physical world and not suffer on some level simply by virtue of the fact that we, even if only bodily, always crave something. Something is always missing. Our natural human state in this physical world is one of suffering or being separated from what we believe will make us whole, whether that be the womb or a candy bar. Who are the gurus and healers trying to kid by saying that our natural state is one of peace and prosperity? Without the body, perhaps, this is true. But total “bliss” in the physical world appears to be impossible. Simply, the fact of becoming physical is one of separation or suffering.

      In our daily living we have alcohol, drugs, romance, food, religion, sex, entertainment and much more; all of which distracts us from feeling separated but never really closes the gap. We always come back to a knowing that we are alone in this physical body and that something is still missing. At the least we have admitted to ourselves that “we come in alone and we leave alone” but we haven’t had the courage to admit that the separation also fills the space between coming in and leaving.

     All through varied cultures there are practices that claim to end the duality, or, more appropriately, end our separation from what we believe will make us whole and integrated. In the east, there is the discipline of yoga whose literal term is “union” of body, mind and spirit. Even in religion, especially in the west, we talk about “reunion” with our god as the ending of suffering. Religion even goes so far as to say that eternal damnation actually is that suffering. In metaphysics the idea of a “soul mate” infers that there will no longer be suffering if we are united with our “spiritual other half.” Some of us are even unable to be alone and must have a relationship for fear of having to face that feeling of separation. All release from the pressure of separation, including these activities and practices that we distract ourselves with, is temporary, just as life here is.  Only short intervals of joy are possible as we are distracted from being self conscious.

     As long as we are here, in a physical body, we will never be fully free of suffering.  Even after we leave this earth can we really be sure that there won’t be some other kind of separation that we will have to endure but just in another mode of existence? But who can know what is beyond that? Our religious books all claim to have the answers but we must remember that they were written by humans and are prone to interpretation; interpretation derived from feeling separated from what they believe we need to be whole.

     At this point you are saying, “Wow! This is a very bleak outlook on life.” Our need is based on an assumption that there is something outside of us that will end our separation and suffering. Hence, to know about what we need maintains our separation from it. Yet, to know what we need is to have an awareness of its quality within us. To know its quality within us gives us the ability to become it. Therefore, to be what we need, will end our separation from it. So, to receive love, give love to others. To relieve your burden, take the burden from others. To end loneliness, be a friend to others. To achieve your goals, assist others in achieving theirs. Becoming who and what we need ends our separation from them. Not to do so pushes them away and perpetuates our separation and the resultant suffering. To accept life as a mystery, then, acknowledges that we cannot end our suffering with our minds, but, only by our actions. So, as William Shakespeare so aptly phrased the question, “To be or not to be?” takes on a new light now, doesn’t it?