A message channeled during a group session on August 4, 2024, by Rev. Jeff Munnis to help us understanding the meaning behind pain and suffering.

Transcript

There's an awareness that comes with pain and with suffering. It's a different kind of awareness, something that is unique or different or special because of the pain. And, we might say that one of the funny things about this awareness is that we almost always feel like we knew why we had suffering before we had the same suffering again. And this awareness that comes is a combination of the awareness and knowledge of the suffering, as well as the suffering itself. And when you have both forms of awareness, then you can really sit in a place and know—you can call it to mind or bring it up in consciousness—you can know that you are cleaning or wiping away the karma in your life.

This is a rare kind of awareness. It's the kind of awareness that can come when there's an acceptance of the suffering, an acceptance of the pain, and an acknowledgement of the pain in a way that says to yourself, “I know this feeling. I know the cause of this feeling, and now that I know, and now that I endure this feeling, I can begin the process of moving on.” These patterns or these, I guess you might call them “grooves” or “ruts in the road” where we travel the same road or where we follow the same patterns in our lives, are not easily dislodged and broken up so that they might be washed away and the new road appear before us. They're difficult to get out of the way. They're not easy to remove. If they were easy, and just by knowing we could remove them, that would be something quite different than our experience in this material world. But to know that these things have to be broken up, that they have to be washed away, to know that a new path appears, it may feel like you're on the same path and moving in the same direction, but the path becomes easier. And the easiest path, in a way, is one that's very level and even, neither uphill nor downhill, but one that carries you . . . well, one as if the path is carrying you as well as your own effort carrying you. So, there's a flow to that path, but it takes hard work, hard understandings for that path to surface in front of us. Patience is often important. Being able to wade through that process where the feelings are very intense. Even physical pain might be intense.

But once on that path, the soul is strengthened in a way that it's never felt at any time before in this material world. It's like a strength that sits there, a capacity that that's there for us, but it's summoned by our experience, not by our will. It's summoned by the awareness in us, and so it is drawn, the strength is drawn to us, rather than us exercising it through will. This is important to understand, not just because of the suffering, but also understanding that even in daily life, this summoning of this strength comes about almost independent of our will. If we find ourselves pushing too hard or pulling too hard or feeling like we're grinding out the effort in some way, then that's almost a sure sign that we're impatient or that we're not having the awareness necessary for the moment. When there's a true understanding, there's a release as if the weight has been lifted. There's an understanding that might still recognize the pain and suffering that you're living through, but there's also a lightness of being that can acknowledge change is coming, that change is on its way. And that that change will enter you or embrace you or hold you up in a way that you can recognize its presence for you.

Now when we're on this path, and it doesn't matter the work that we're doing or the people that we're with so much, it's the awareness that we're on this path that matters. It's not a kind of place that you can go to that you all of a sudden know that you've arrived at a place to begin your work. Again, there's the feeling inside of ourselves that this awareness sort of arrives inside of us so that we know that we are physically, as well as spiritually in this world, part of the path that we're on.

One way of understanding this is that there are many teachers that talk about how they experience the embodiment of God, but understand that that ultimate union is not something that someone experiences in this world. But what one does experience is this lifting of the weight and the lightness of being that comes with this processing of karma in this way. So that one can literally feel like they're being carried along, but they are part of either the truth or the compassion or the love that has taken over in life. And we've said this before that we don't own the truth. The truth owns us, but let's also say that the same is true of love. The same is true of love in that it becomes dominant in our framework that we see the world. It becomes part of our way of seeing and doing, not just our way of feeling. And when it is part of doing, as if we are obedient, we're not quite there yet if it's only out of obedience. We get a little bit closer when we see and feel this movement that's almost independent of us, and it’s when we have that combination of doing loving things, as well as feeling the movement of love in us, as well as seeing love with an awareness of the world, seeing the world with an awareness of love, then that state of being in love becomes more prominent. It becomes a matter of expression. And when we say that this love is being expressed in us, then there is the effect of love on our being, and that's why we feel like using language like being “in love.” Of course, there are those who become infatuated with another person, and they feel like they are being in love. That's not quite the same thing. This type of love doesn't have the same kind of object or the same kind of focus of its love. It's more of, it's both deeper and broader. It's more expansive and inclusive in its sense and it's understanding in its view. And it's the kind of thing that once we hold this kind of love, as we grow in our awareness, and as we are able to find the expression of it within ourselves, then our ability to direct that love toward another person becomes much more powerful. And when we reach that kind of state of being, that's the kind of moment where we feel that we are a co-creator with God of our experience in this world. And again, remember we are co-creating in our experience, but it's not a matter of will, it's a matter of this choosing us or choosing to enter us through our awareness.

Some people might say that this is too hard, or that they can't quite get it, or it just doesn't feel natural to function in this way, but there is a need to be patient with yourself, a need to be fully present, a need to have an acknowledgement of the truth within yourself. And then, when we find ourselves with that kind of awareness and that kind of equanimity, then that's when it becomes evident the words of Jesus when he says, “My burden is easy, and my yoke is light.” It's when he invites us to come toward him in such a way that we will receive this love, this way of being carried, as well as being engaged and aware. It becomes that, it's like the window on the world that we use to see, and as we step into the window more and more, we're able to see outside of ourselves in a much more expansive, a much more open way.

And as you remember right now, we began with the idea of how suffering can bring this kind of awareness, this kind of compassion within us, this kind of acceptance through our patience, but as we learn these lessons, the need for that kind of suffering changes. And so, we don't always have to choose a path or hold a path of pain in order to get in this kind of flow or in this kind of awareness. Once we begin to experience this, once we surrender ourselves to this, once it takes hold of us and owns us, then that becomes a larger part of our non-suffering experience, our experience of the world that is more joy-filled, that is more, we might even say that it's more sensuous in that our ability to experience the world is at a higher level. And so, we can acknowledge a different sensation with touch or a different sensation or a more intense sensation of taste or that we hear a broader range of tones where we see a broader range of colors. We're able to see more texture in the world, so our material experience is enhanced as well. But all of that comes without the use of our will. It comes with our openness and our surrender. If we lay down ourselves in a certain way, like walking so hard trying to make progress on our path when the real movement occurs when we sit down and rest and let go and know that we've done the hard work, know that we've given good effort, then maybe that effort helps us surrender, but it’s in the surrendering that were picked up and carried and held by God.

(S.G. – Do you feel in that surrendering, and the awareness that surrender and the process of coming through this any point in our life of suffering and pain, do you also feel besides it burning off karmic experiences, do you also feel like it works to assist something larger that might be happening with the earth or the world in a similar way to individual karma?)

Indeed. A person who's experiencing this, the thing that's frequently said is that a rising tide, even a small person who changes lifts all the boats around them. That's one way of looking at it, but I think that that what's coming through is saying that it's very powerful to have just one person witness the truth sometimes can change a large group of people. And change, you know people talk about having a product or software or something that will change the world, but it's really the consciousness, the change in the consciousness that is the greater change, and that's what we're saying right now is that this kind of work is the kind of work that has to happen regardless of all those other worldly things. That all those other worldly things are really just kind of a prelude to greater change or a more dominant change in consciousness. And it can be expressed in a lot of different ways through individual people. So the impact of what you're saying is true, and it is a world-changing event. And our knowledge of how powerful that is is so . . . we have so little awareness of how big that is. Yet we see it. We see it and sometimes we don't recognize it until afterwards, but if we think of someone like Muhammad or the Buddha or Jesus, these are individuals who have changed and transformed themselves in ways. And I said transform themselves, but I mean, they've been transformed by their experience as well. The path that they've traveled is similar to our path. The uniqueness has to do with our own purpose and our own expression, but that awareness in that one person is what helped so much change, and so, a similar change in awareness of one person has the same potential in the world, and those who are aware of that potential can usually see that and are inspired by someone around them. It is embodying that same change.

(S.G. - Thank you.)

Even though you may not feel like you're seen, you are seen on many levels, by many individuals. And the subtlety of that vision, of that ability to see ripples out from you, from us in ways that we frequently don't see with our material eyes, but if we were to connect with our heart, we might sometimes feel that in other ways.

(M.C. – I just want to make some comments and then ask you a question. Before I came, I had this feeling of somehow, well it's so nice to see you, but I was hoping for some kind of relief. And I wasn't even really clear on an intellectual level what I meant until I started to hear you speak. This week I just felt like I was in a black hole at one point, and I heard myself say, “I don't want to play this game anymore. I don't want to play.” And, you know, that doesn't mean I was going to do something drastic, it's just how I felt. Thank you because you're helping me to experience some grief around how my challenges seem to be non-ending. And I don't know that I fully grieve because this voice comes up that says, “But there are so many people who are so much worse off.” And I think it stops it. And I wonder if you have any thoughts about that. Thank you because I'm still blubbering.)

Sometimes the most evident suffering is the easiest suffering because we recognize its source, and so, if someone is at a basic level of subsistence, and their suffering is from hunger, there's no amount of spiritual ideas or phrases or talk that’s going to do very much for them until they've been fed physically. The same thing is true with pain. Sometimes we can't hear something until the pain's gone. What I'm saying is that there's a different kind of tension that exists inside of us with what I'll call spiritual suffering or a suffering where we don't understand the cause, where there hasn't been something change in us in a way that we have that moment of light or “a-ha.” And sometimes this is connected to that use of the will, you know, like to tell ourselves, “Oh, you shouldn't feel bad because there are these other things that we see that look horrible.” The inner condition of the person has so much more to do with the depth of the suffering, the anxiety that comes from the continuous tension that exists inside of us is traumatic. And so, it doesn't matter if we perceive our suffering to be small or little or big or overwhelming or we feel like we can handle it or whatever. The only path to the other side of that suffering is to go through our own version of it whatever it is. And so, even if we feel like we are at this trivial place with ourselves about our own judgment about our suffering, guess what? You're gonna have to deal with what you think is trivial and go through it regardless. And it's in those kind of moments when the little things we realize are the big things because we feel the weight that's been lifted from us once we've worked our way through that suffering, once we've worked our way through an understanding or a surrender. There is so much fear around surrendering. There can be the fear that if we let go, that we'll lose control over our lives, and we'll have no ability to gather all of our controlling ability back into ourselves to keep things going. Or we feel like if we’ll surrender that we might just give up and die, but that's a that's a different kind of giving up. The type of surrender that we're working with here is a kind of surrender that acknowledges these other powers that are around us and in us, these powers of truth, these energies of love and compassion, these perspectives that come with a different kind of awareness. These are around us. They're part of our consciousness. They can find their expression in us. And in many situations, it's that judgment of what we think we deserve or what we think we don't deserve that gets in the way of just simply acknowledging the truth of whatever a situation is, and working with that truth at the most simple, basic level, just taking one small step. And if we take the right step, then it's sort of like a domino effect: all the other things begin to fall in the same direction, meaning we build that momentum. We get that sense of being carried, that there's an energy around us that's not our will that's functioning. It's more our acceptance, and our acknowledgement of this love, this energy, this power, this potential that’s always there inside of us. And so, that judgment, we can call it that, that way of saying we deserve or don't deserve something, if that can get out of the way, that's probably bigger than the suffering itself.

(M.C. - Thank you. Thank you, Jeff.)

I always feel with this group that there's so much kindness that’s around everyone. And, I'd like to make a distinction between kindness and being nice because sometimes when we're nice, we're just polite, you know, but we carry other baggage with that, like we feel like we're tolerating someone or we're putting up with something, but we somehow use our will to create that nice moment. But kindness comes from this place that we've been talking about, that we've been sharing, and in this group, there's a lot of kindness. And part of that kindness manifests itself with the truth. That when we can acknowledge our intolerance, then our niceness becomes kindness. Or if we can acknowledge our anxiety, that our use of our will kind of shifts, and it becomes a surrender that allows the goodness in us to come through. And those are very different things than just being nice. And that kindness is, I can feel that in every one of you. It's a different way of relating, not just to each other, but to the world, and to the understanding of why we're here and how we grow and what kind of movement that we each want to take. And sometimes kindness doesn't seem like it's going to be enough, but it wins in the end. It overcomes so much, and it overcomes, not just our own fear, but often when we have that expression of kindness, it overcomes the fear of those that are around us, that in that same moment might be feeling the same anxiety or the same fear, and that kindness releases the tension.

So that reservoir of kindness that I'm feeling, feels very much like an unlimited reservoir of energy and consciousness, a certain kind of awareness. We should all be enjoying that ocean of kindness and swim around in it a little more.

S.G. - Thank you for making that distinction. I think it's so easy when you're in these periods of really concentrated journeys, medical or otherwise, you can feel less tolerant and more impatient. But it also can feel like the kindness can be there, which like you said is different from being nice. So, all those things can coexist and it's often easy to forget that. So, thank you for mentioning this.

I think that you are, someone that for me, no matter what's going on with you, every time Stelli and I have been around you, we feel like you are an expression of kindness. It doesn't matter what's going on, we feel that in you.

(S.G. – Well you're a dear to say that. It often seems to come out with cuss words so I just feels like such a juxtaposition of all of it, you know.)

Well, if it’s the truth, it works.

(M.C. – I've always felt that from S.G. also.)

(S.G. – Well from all of you guys. I think that's why we're here, and I think that's why we resonate with Jeff and Stelli, and why this work and where it's headed, we wanna be a part of it, and witness it in the world, you know.)