pain & suffering (Part Deux)

adding to the wonderful quote i posted two days ago...

(continuing two days later)

i wrote the quote two days ago mainly to remind myself that while no one (well, almost no one, i guess) chooses pain, suffering is very often a matter of choice, relatively speaking, whether or not most of us are willing to admit to it .. the fact remains that most of us carry years of guilt, shame, low self-esteem, anger, hate... largely unreasonably and unthinkingly ("unscrutinized")... and at the end of life's journeys will surely find no one left to blame for the negativity we feel.. except ourselves..

it's really scary when i think about it this way.. it seems then that coming to a resolution about many of the so-called "issues" in our lives seem the most intelligent thing to do. and very urgent too...

quoted from Yoda:

"...But beware. Anger, fear, aggression. The dark side are they. Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny."

"“"Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to s u f f e r i n g....!!!”

a friend of mine once told me, quoting from Krishnamurti, that the two greatest forces driving a man (or person) are Love and Fear.. i remember finding that a little bit unbelieveable, but on reflection, i see the truth of it.. Test this out on yourself first. Think of something you are angry about, something you hate, or something you are suffering over and follow it back until you figure out what you are fearful about (fear that people won't understand, fear of acceptance, fear of not being normal, fear of failure, afraid it won't work, afraid of what will happen next, etc. etc..)

even for educators like myself, according to Krishnamurti, you have to understand the implication of fear, how fear comes about. Just as you know about other subjects, you have to know something of fear. Society is doing everything to inculcate fear by laying down standards, religious ideals, class distinctions, ideas of success, the sense of the inferior and the superior, the rich man and the poor man. Society is doing everything possible to breed distorted values.

fear, pain, suffering.. life is indeed a long learning journey...