“You know quite well, deep within you, that there is only a single magic, a single power, a single salvation...and that is called loving. Well, then, love your suffering. Do not resist it, do not flee from it. It is your aversion that hurts, nothing else.
”
― Hermann Hesse, Wer lieben kann, ist glücklich. Über die Liebe
Today I got some really derailing, possibly life changing news, and not of the good variety. At first, I lost it a bit, but then, my teachings. I heard this voice in my head that’s my minds approximation of what Herman Hess would sound like. Deep, gravely, with wisdom and mileage. This post isn’t about the news.
You see, there’s really no way to control life. We can plan for it, but plans are tenuous at best. We can dream about it, but dreams clear in the light of day. So in the end, our control over circumstance is only an illusion that allows us to cope with what is a rather chaotic existence. Pretty bleak, huh?
Well, life is suffering. I’ll say it again, life IS suffering. It’s also love, and hope, and desire, and lust, and anger, and everything that goes along with then human experience, our experience. So what can we control in a world with no control?
We can control ourselves. We can control our reactions to life’s chaos. We can be at peace instead of rage, we can have joy instead, or in the face of, hardship. We can choose to love, instead of fear and hate. Love.
Love our suffering. Because love is the most potent force in the universe. It binds us all, and binds all things. All of our love, or experience of it, comes from the same mechanism that also creates our experience of hate and fear. In resistance to it, we find fear, but in embracing it, we find love, and in that find our peace within the storm.
I could go down the path of fear, but today I’m going to love my suffering, because in the end, the only true control we have is whether we live in fear, or live in love.
Rambling over………………….
