More about Heartache
First Question: Is heartache divinely prescribed?
Answer: I really don’t think so. I believe God allows humanity the freedom to create karma, both good and bad, and the opportunity to undo negative karma. If we assume God’s character is anything like the ancient depiction found in the book of Job, where God and Satan have a “friendly wager“ on whether Job would still love God after Satan tortures Job by murdering his entire family, killing his livestock, destroying all of his possessions and inflicting him with a severe skin disease; then it makes sense to assume suffering and heartache are tools that that type of tribal god would use to “whip his people into shape.”
I’m speaking in extremes to challenge our unquestioned beliefs. What’s the possibility we’ve been programmed to ascribing God’s character based on this 4,000-year-old oral tradition that eventually got penned into the Hebrew Bible? These are fear-based depictions of God spoken by primal folks projecting their level of consciousness onto God. Does a thunderstorm mean God is angry? Many of the ancients believed so.
Monastic traditions throughout the world and many different religions believe there is purification of the soul through suffering and mortification of the flesh. Fasting to the point of starvation, self flagellation, and to the extreme, some people in the Philippines have themselves nailed to a cross with 4 inch nails for 5 minutes on Good Friday to prove their devotion and assuage their guilt.
God does not prescribe heartache; we do, because deep down we think we deserve to suffer. Unconsciously, there is a belief that if we suffer enough, we eventually earn our way into heaven. We somehow believe that if we don’t suffer, we don’t care enough and are unworthy of grace. This is pure ego juice. There is much unconscious guilt that became part of our culture, handed down from medieval Christianity. The Roman church manipulated kings and kingdoms throughout most of Europe for centuries by using guilt as a tool for control. But the Love of God has nothing to do with guilt or shame. God is like what Jesus said: “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Luke 12:32
Second Question: Can heartache be instructive?
Answer: Not necessarily, but sometimes, yes. It is possible that pain can serve to awaken one to greater mindfulness through inner questioning. It would be very easy for me to microwave an answer here and say, long-term heartache is pretty much always related to what the Buddha referred to as the 3 Poisons: Attachments, Aversions & Naiveté. All 3 of which can be transcended, unless one believes they “need to suffer” to appease their inner guilt. From personal experience, having endured a gut wrenching divorce and watching my children suffer with feelings of abandonment was the source of deep pain. In watching dear congregants succumb to extremely painful diseases as they leave the planet, with their spouses and family unable to alleviate their pain, my views have been greatly tempered and softened over the years. These types of experiences can serve to increase our capacity for love and compassion.
Byron Katie shows people how to quickly find freedom from suffering in a couple other ways. First, she describes the Universe as having only 3 kinds of businesses: mine, yours and God’s. If I’m getting into another’s business, Katie says, “Welcome to insanity.” Think of how relaxing it is to realize that we do not need to save the world!
The other she calls “The Work.” At its core are 4 simple questions to ask yourself when something is galling you, (described in her books “Loving What Is” & “A Thousand Names for Joy.”) They are: 1. “Is it true?” 2. “Can you absolutely know that it’s true?” 3. “How do you react when you think that thought?” – (Really look at your inventory here. Is your heartache due to believing something else “should” have happened?) 4. “Who would you be without that thought?” We pretty much always discover that we are experiencing heartache because we expect things to be different than they are, based on false ideas and stories that almost always have no validity or foundation in Truth.
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