Suffering vs Pain: Is Freedom Possible? Horror Movie Analogy
In this video Oliver explains why suffering and pain are two distinct things. Using an analogy of a horror movie or dramatic cinematic experience, you'll discover why "suffering" is far greater when we run away from it and add layers of narrative on top of it.
Transcript
There is definitely such thing as freedom from human imposed egoic suffering.
That is possible in this lifetime.
You can transcend human caused self-caused suffering and that comes through investigating one's relationship to who you are or who you think you are and also your relationship to suffering,
To the external world,
To pain and eventually you realize that suffering is pain clothed up and labeled by the ego.
There's a big difference between pain and suffering.
Suffering is like pain which has been painted by the egoic mind and it's been mishandled and suffering by definition is mismanaged energy.
It's immaturely managed energy and when we say immature it's not to be condescending,
It's just to recognize that we all have a growth and in the past we were immature.
In this lifetime you can achieve freedom from human imposed,
Human cultivated suffering.
You can.
That doesn't mean that you won't experience pain,
Discomfort.
Pain and suffering are integral features of the human experience.
Every individual has a backlog of pain and emotional density and my experience given that I've been on this journey for quite a long time now,
Doing this for 15-20 years,
That flow of emotional density,
It keeps on rolling,
It keeps on coming throughout life.
That's pain that I have to sit with every day but it's not suffering unless I want it to be suffering,
Unless my ego decides to put a veneer on it as suffering.
And I can also tell you that life is a lot more worse when we're running away from pain.
When you turn the page and you decide you're going to face pain pragmatically safely within the framework of a holistic wellness system that I call unity life,
Then it ceases to be strangling,
It ceases to be as much of a big deal.
It's like in a movie,
A horror movie is more scary when you don't see the monster,
When you don't see the bad guy.
Once you face the bad guy,
Once you face the monster in a horror movie,
It loses its power over you.
It's still ugly,
It still looks like hell,
But it's not this unknown force that we're wincing and preparing to avoid.
Meet your Teacher
