I know I've used different words to say this before, but I feel I have a purpose beyond my trauma and my hope is that as I take this idea further, I will eventually see God in it. 'It' being the trauma. In a previous post, I had written that God was never absent in our lives, and nor was (S)he ever the bystander. Even though I came to that conclusion and put it in writing, I am still working on figuring out God's role in that part of my life. If God hadn't abandoned me in that moment and if God was not the bystander, allowing the events to unfold without any sign of intervention, then what active role was (S)he fulfilling in that moment that proves I was not abandoned or forsaken by Him/Her?
Ram Dass calls our traumas and hardships 'fierce grace'. He says that "suffering is the sandpaper, from the spiritual point of view, that is awakening people"; he continues by saying, "And once you start to spiritually awaken, you re-perceive your own suffering and start to work with it as a vehicle for awakening." I think sandpaper is too gentle a term for my suffering, but I am willing to call it a chisel...something else used in wood-making. He also talks about how when we listen to and share in each other's grief with one another to the fullest extent possible, we can then "meet behind the grief". But the question remains, why is suffering necessary? Doesn't it seem a bit malicious to require us to suffer in order to gain enlightenment?
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