Acharya Prashant: Suffering is a fire that burns down a lot. It brings along a certain purification. One of the poets gave the example of a snowball. Snowball that is cleansing itself in its own blood; by melting down. When a snowball starts melting, it starts becoming cleaner. And the process of melting is surely not the pleasant one.
In fact, at several points, I have been compelled to say that Awakening begins with suffering. And if there is no suffering, only so-called bliss then really you are not being purified at all.
The saints have all sung songs of intense longing, intense pain and intense feeling of separation. Feeling of being devastated. Feeling of being burnt away. Feeling that house itself has come thrashing down. Most of that literature at least to extent, my knowledge allows, is in vernacular Indian language, and is not in English. But I still hope that memory would serve the right ones right now.
It is Kabir who says:
Sukhiya sab sansaar hai, khaave aur soye (सुखिया सब संसार है, खावे और सोये)Dukhiya das Kabir hai, jaage aur roye (दुखिया दास कबीर है, जागे और रोये)
Sukhiya sab sansaar hai, khaave aur soye (The world is happy and smiling, it eats and sleeps).
