CHAPTER 14

Voluntary Suffering

The seeker should be able to recognize his faults without identifying with them. He must be able to control his animal nature by mental exertion and by examination of conscience.

(E.J. Gold. The Joy of Sacrifice, 118)

If you want to know what real suffering is, as opposed to the mechanical suffering created by conditioning, begin the practice of self observation without judgment. This suffering which arises from self observation without judgment is known in the Work as “voluntary suffering.” Of course, it is voluntary because no one can make another observe oneself. How could it be? I must, of my own accord, by my own choice begin to observe myself without judgment. And once I do so, I will begin to suffer in a new way. And it is this suffering in me which will create a new organ within, which is known in this Work as conscience. Once one has sufficiently developed conscience in oneself, one is called “reborn,” a “new human.” I can never again have the same relationship with my inner world, or the outer world, as I once had. Now I am able to take upon myself, voluntarily, some of the suffering of the Creator, to relieve the Creator of some of Its burden. I am able to “pick up my own cross and carry it,” as Matthew 16:24 suggests. When a human understands this Work from one’s own experience—not from what others have said—then they will begin to understand the Gospels in a new way as well. To carry your own cross is joy, but not joy as we know it.

We are exploring here together the means by which a human may recover from the wound of the heart. No one has escaped such wounds, no one. Not even Jesus himself escaped such wounds. Do you think you have managed to do so? It is Jesus, in the Christian tradition, who demonstrates the power of voluntary suffering. This is also known as conscious suffering, because it is the direct result of a human becoming more conscious via the practice of self observation. The first level of consciousness is to become self-conscious. This is what self observation does for me; it brings me to a conscious level of humanity where I may become self conscious. Ordinary humanity is unconscious, mechanical, automatic-pilot, creatures of habit, mammalian in nature, not yet on the level of a human being.

People who awaken self consciousness in themselves have arrived at the first level of what it means to be a human being. I am no longer on the level of ordinary humanity. Now suffering of a new kind enters into my life because I see with ever-increasing clarity the divided self, my fragmented nature, and I feel what this madness is doing to me. Thus, I suffer. Suffering is the great motivator in human life. When there is pleasure, I become automatic, maintaining the status quo. But when pain enters, I am constructed in such a way that I move away from pain. Suffering motivates me to Work, to make effort, to see more in order to find my way through suffering to pleasure.

Voluntary suffering arises from the horror of seeing the divided self without the protection of so many buffers. I see myself as I am, not as I have always pretended to be. I see myself without lying. Honesty arises in me, and humility, as by-products of self observation. That is, all of the virtues which the great religious traditions have encouraged, begin to awaken in me from the matrix of my basic goodness.

Voluntary suffering produces in me virtue, but it is not the kind of self-righteousness which is so obvious in those who show off their virtue in the public house. From self-righteousness comes the very worst of human behavior, unimaginable horrors, war and violence of every kind. No. The self conscious being has a quiet virtue, hidden from view because it arises with humility. I see what I am. I do not pretend to be otherwise. Speaking personally, I see that I am a liar, boastful, arrogant, self important, a know-it-all, a thief, a cheat, lustful, greedy, miserly, cruel, insensitive, vain, self righteous—do I need to continue? Do you see how you and I are just the same? We are all ego-driven, and this is what the ego is made of. When I begin to see this in myself honestly, without judgment, simply the way things are in me, voluntary suffering begins and this suffering is transformative, unlike the suffering of ordinary humanity. It is this suffering which awakens basic goodness, organic intelligence, and conscience. Even if my blind spot is self hatred, which mine is, and its message is, “I’m no good,” still what arises in me to my astonishment and wonder, is basic goodness; I become basically good in spite of my personally created ego hell.

To me, this is grace. Our Creator is goodness, is love, is consciousness, is attention. It pays attention in me, because It dwells in me, as the self. It is attention and It is what gives attention within. And by Its grace, humility arises. Thank God! Humility is a balm to suffering. It is the embryo of real conscience. Humility is true beauty. It arises when I have paid for it, not before. It arises as a natural outpouring of basic goodness and as a result of patient, non-judgmental, honest, sincere self observation. Can you see the miracle of this? Perhaps you can see the beauty of it. Amazing grace saves a wretch like me. But this “saved” is not the result of a one-time experience in which I make some claim to being some kind of so-and-so and then forever after, no matter my behavior, I am in a state of grace. It is not that of which we speak here. I pay with voluntary suffering, and am rewarded with grace. It is moment to moment.

Nothing needs to be “fixed” here. It is only given to us to be a witness to the Work of our Creator. Once I assume my rightful place in relation to my Creator—as a witness—then the Creator does the rest. My task is to observe without judgment, “not doing,” and leave the rest to my Creator. The Creator is kind and good. But, It will not interfere, ever, for any reason. It will not force Itself, will not insist or be aggressive in any way. Those who wish to thrust their religion on others aggressively are unconscious, as I am. It makes no sense to judge them or me, but to suffer them as I do myself, quietly and patiently, without show or complaint. The wise person leads by example, how one treats oneself and others, not by words alone. In the self-conscious person, a most unusual thing appears in this world: one whose words and actions match. Voluntary suffering is called in the Christian tradition, the “Way of the Cross.”

 

Humbled By Love

You say you had a father once

and though you wished he were a prince

he turned out to be a shameful dunce,

a hopeless idiot bereft of common sense

whose behavior would shame a wild boar?

Well I am one like that, a man whose fear

wounded my daughters. Men like me adore

our children, though we tremble at our

ignorance, are foolish and without grace

in our devotion. But slowly what is gross

in us gives way to the child’s fearless embrace

the way a barren plain yields to lush grass.

Though in his arrogance the proud man stumbles, worship

of his child ennobles as it humbles.

(Red Hawk. The Art of Dying, 50)