Suffering invokes freedom, Suffering brings Truth || Acharya Prashant, on Guru Kabir (2019)

Do listen to your slave’s prayer and relieve me of my agony. Says Kabir—I shall doubtless get my Lord and sing the auspicious song of love in chorus with Him.

~ Kabir

Questioner: In this song, Kabir yearns for union with God desperately; he says he is in agony. On the other hand, he also says that he is doubtless. How can these two coexist? How can Kabir be doubtless?

Acharya Prashant: This doubtlessness is the hallmark of love. What is love? These two things together: knowing fully well that there is separation, and knowing fully well that separation is false and, therefore, separation has to go. That is the state of the lover. That is the state of the singer or the seeker. How is there doubtlessness? Because of suffering; because of the fact of suffering.

So, the two facts that you talked of are not in opposition to each other; in fact, they complement each other. First thing you talked of was the acknowledgement of suffering—the yearning, the agony; and the second thing you talked of was the utter assurance that union is inevitable. It is because of the first that the second is there. You will ask, “How?” When suffering is so very heavy, pronounced, then your honesty makes it very important, mandatory upon you to get rid of that suffering.

You see, if you have small irritants in life, probably you can live with them. If you have a little bit of back pain and you go to the doctor, he will suggest to you certain medicines maybe, certain exercises maybe, and he will tell you that “After these medicines and these exercises, the pain will subside.” A little bit of pain may still remain, and he will ask you to live with the pain. He won’t tell you to get a spinal cord surgery to get rid of the remnant pain.

Things that trouble you just a little bit can be lived with. We all live with a little bit of discomfort here and there, don’t we? There would be nobody, for example, who would not have some relationship issues, some physical problem, even some psychological problem. But we don’t jump into drastic measures to get rid of pimples, do we? Small things—who wants to invest too much energy in them?

So, the small can be allowed to coexist with you. If your car gets a little scratch on the door, do you immediately take it to the workshop to get the dent removed—and the dent is so very minor—and to get the scratch removed and the area painted? You don’t. But if your car gets a nice enough accident, then you no longer continue to tolerate the broken condition of the car; then you necessarily take it to the workshop.

Small problems can be allowed to remain because they are small. Separation from God is not a small problem; it is a huge issue. And because it is a huge issue, so it is definitely not going to continue forever. A pimple on the skin can continue for long; some pimple here and some pimple there can continue for long, but skin cancer cannot continue for long; either you finish it or it finishes you. And therefore, there is no doubt that something will yield, that something will go.

That is from where Kabir Sahib gets his doubtlessness. Separation from God is such a searing pain; it aches twenty-four hours. It doesn’t allow you to live, eat, breathe, sleep, walk, think. The very intensity of the pain convinces you that the pain cannot continue for long. It is so bad that it cannot remain so bad for too long. The problem has come to its peak, its climax. Obviously, something has got to go; obviously, something is going to change.

And that is one great way through which the saints attain union: for them the situation turns so bad that it has to now turn for the good. They are the ones who experience the agony; they are the ones who weep, who cry; and therefore they are the ones who rectify. For the commoner, for the worldly householder, the situation never gets so bad. It’s always bad, but always under control. Isn’t that the description of the condition of the common man? Ask him, “How is it?” He will say, “Bad, but not bad enough to collapse.” And because things are never bad enough for him to collapse, so his false structures stay put. There is always a simmering discontent within, but never a rebellion. Why is there never a rebellion? Because even when things are very bad for him, still the badness is tempered, reduced by the occasional pleasures that the common man so very much values.

So, one has had a terrible fight with the wife, and it has become clear that the situation is pathetic; it has become clear that the marriage is rotting. It is actually coming to the point of explosion. It is a very important moment—the moment of the fight. Entire day, entire evening the two of them fought, and it is clear to both the man and the wife that life is full of suffering. But then comes the night and the acknowledgement that life is full of suffering just disappears. A little bit of sexual engagement is enough to make both of them forget that the situation is terrible. Next morning the two will wake up largely forgetful of the hell that they experienced the entire day before. A little bit of pleasure is enough to make man tolerate huge indignities.

The saint is not sold out to pleasure. So, when suffering hits him, suffering stays with him; he does not quickly get out of it. The common man has coping mechanisms; the saint has no coping mechanism. Had a bad day? Have some beer and then you cope up. Had a bad week? Drench the weekend in shopping. This option is not available to the saint. If he has had a bad week, he has had a bad week, and he will acknowledge that the week was honestly bad.

So, things come pretty soon to the boiling point for the saint. His honesty does not allow him to obfuscate the reality. He cannot lie to himself; he cannot sell himself out to mundane pleasures. And so he is convinced; so he is doubtless. His very suffering tells him of freedom from suffering. He knows that suffering of this magnitude, suffering of this intensity just cannot continue. His longing convinces him of union. He knows very well that if the longing is so intense, then it is impossible that the union is too far away. As they say, it is the darkest just before dawn.

The world is the world. Life is life. The difference between the saint and others is that the saint does not compromise very easily. He has a knack for reality. He has a taste for honesty.

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