Subj : The Origin Of Suffering To : All From : Jacques Montagne Date : Thu Sep 13 2001 10:53 pm Dear friends, As I chose to come back to my new place of work, my low income housing apartment in Montreal yesterday, I am now in a position where I must and can easily write the thoughts and feelings that were with me as I awoke a short while ago. When I only have my laptop available, I have plenty of excuses not to share in writing, most of them having to do with my lack of familiarity with Windows 98. Any excuse is valid when faced with a need for expression that appears so frightening at first. THIS IS THE ORIGIN OF MY LIFE-LONG SUFFERING. As many citizens in modern societies, I was brought up under a repressive family system, often a reflection of the ideals of the leaders of the culture this family is part of. Expressing one's anger at being deprived of the satisfaction of one's primary needs is frowned upon by many parents and adult educators; of course many of us now know that they themselves have not had the privilege of learning to express their pains, sadness and anger openly and honestly. This repetition of dysfunctional behaviors, generation after generation, appears to have been repeated from one generation to the next from the beginnings of recorded history. This appears to be one aspect of the realities of living; it is part of human condition, as I see it. I was ignorant and I had lost the humble awareness of that fundamental ignorance. Some time, a very long time ago, I got to believe that I could do everything on my own, never needing anybody. I was equal to god, or so I started to believe, as the story of original sin goes. And it appears to me that I paid a very high price for that ego-trip, a price of unending suffering. My crazy belief that I knew everything and didn't need anybody was self-abuse of the highest order. I don't believe there was anything special about that wrong turn of thinking; it appears to be part of the growth of all human beings now and through all history. The childish games of ego ideals are only a manifestation of the power of our minds and it is easy to get addicted to them, especially if we suffer from the deprivation of our legitimate needs, from the primary physical needs to the higher reaches of spiritual needs. Abraham Maslow did a good presentation of those needs in his hierarchical theory of motivation back in the 60's. And the psychology of religions gives us good hints on how this is commonly done in large societies where the need to belong forces one into the learning of neurotic games; Earnie Larsen has described that in his family of origin workshops and books. Yes, I suffer because I have not yet humbly admitted to my relative ignorance on What I Am, Where I Come From and Where I am going. Many philosophies, theories on human goals, religious beliefs systems have tried to answer my deep rooted need for understanding. I still am powerless over my inability to humbly suffer when adverse conditions fall upon me. How can it be that ME, so smart, or so I believe, suffers so much. How unfair, how unjust; I do not deserve it. I must have done something wrong, taken a wrong turn somewhere, abandoned the gods of my youth, so I feel guilty. But now I believe that I was only unaware and ignorant and I didn't know that this was a normal state of being in the human condition. It is only when I admit that I am powerless over my suffering of the moment and allow that suffering to be felt that I eventually come to enlightenment on how I came to suffer. But it has taken me so long to accept and practice the humble acceptance of my fundamental ignorance. It is only when I admit that I don't know, that new knowledge, new understanding can come to me. And the first of the 12 Steps is a powerful tool in that regard. Surrendering to my powerlessness of the moment, to the frightening confusion in my mind, to the fear of unpredictable events in my environment, to the impermanence of all perceptions, I have to admit, is a grace of the highest order. I cannot will that on me. It is to be given to me when I am prostrated by grief, despair, depression. This is why one of my favorite authors, Dr. Kazimier Dabrowsky called depression a positive growth process. It is only when I allow my primitive mental structures to collapse, that a new integration of the experiences of my past can be rebuilt into a new awareness, a higher level spiritual awareness. Through the grace of God, many will say. Whether that God is an outer reality or a creation of my limited and suffering mind is of no consequence. I can only acknowledge to the spontaneous emergence of knowledge and be a witness to it. This is basically what I do when I share in my written chronicles or in my talks in 12 steps circles. I must humbly admit that I never had an original thought; they all are given to me through Grace. I spontaneously go from darkness to light, from ignorance to understanding; this is what I call the guru principle. I am but a witness to what is, to the Ultimate Reality, the Reality beyond words or, if you so prefer, to God's will for me. All of my above statements come from 15 years of use of the 12 Steps Way of Life, from 20 years use of Buddha's 4 Noble Truths, from the reading of many inspired writers in many fields and mostly, from listening to you and to a wide variety of human beings over the past 60 years. I have been graced to be born in a peaceful and economically stable society. I have been graced to become able to see my parents, however dysfunctional they might have been, as the instruments of my current awareness. I appear to have come full circle from exploring the reality of my suffering and the understanding of it's origins. Yes, my ego, my survivor's acquired personality was the source of all my suffering. All I can humbly admit to is to my still relative ignorance, and humbly accept to live through confusion, pain and grief. As a reward from Grace, those tough states of mind are always followed by joy and laughter. This is the cycle of awareness. * May there be Good for All ! * Jacques copyright 2001, JM ___--------------------------------------------------------------------- P.S. If you feel like answering, commenting or asking questions, BUT IN PRIVATE MODE, please leave me a message at any of the following electronic addresses: A.O.L. 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