Rather than giving a purpose – the world is for this reason, that reason – because for the advaita vedantin since there is no real creation, they are not going to give you the reason for creation.
From the Buddhist perspective also, the world is as such is messed with dukkha, and nobody created the world as such, it is beginning less, going on stream pravah or flow that you cannot ask why. It’s just going the way it is.
From the Trika perspective, because there is the central Divinity then the question is valid. Why would the Lord create a miserable world? And that is where the Shaivas differ. Why do you conclude that the world is miserable? You are used to seeing glass half empty. Why can’t you start seeing glass half full? The world has both things. We learn about enjoyment, fun, being in the world and we pick the dirt while we play on the ground and then we became miserable. The more the dirt we pick up, the more miserable we become. If we were to clean, wash off all the dirt we picked up in the process of time, we would go back to the same pristine natal state of joy.
And the world as such is joyous, we are just tied with our limited body and limited mind and mental projections, all our anticipations and then we project it to be full of suffering. It does not need to be like that. You can choose the world to be full of suffering and suffer. But you can also choose the world to be a magical place. So, they developed some kind of magical realism that the whole world is almost like endless magical projection in not having any particular beginning or ending, unfolding a whirlpool of multiple streams.
Dr. Sthaneshwar Timalsina, Introduction to Kashmiri Shaivism
Tag: Suffering
Jim Carrey – On depression and how suffering leads to salvation
And ultimately, I believe that suffering leads to salvation. In fact, it’s the only way…that we have to, somehow, accept, not deny, but feel our suffering and feel our losses. And then, we make one of two decisions. We either decide to go through the gate of resentment, which leads to vengeance, which leads to self-harm, which leads to harm to others. Or, we go through the gate of forgiveness, which leads to grace.
[Y]our being here is an indication that…You’ve made the decision to walk through the gate of forgiveness to grace, just as Christ did on the cross.
He suffered terribly and He was broken by it, to the point of doubt and a feeling of absolutely abandonment, which all of you have felt. Then there was a decision to be made. And the decision was to look upon the people who were causing that suffering with compassion and with forgiveness, and that’s what opens the gates of heaven for all of us. I wish that for all of you. I wish that for myself.
Jim Carrey – message for a group of former gang members and prisoners at Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles.
Suffering is an idea that there is an…
Suffering is an idea that there is an ‘I’ that doesn’t like what is happening.
-Jac O’Keeffe
Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet…
Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.
—Helen Keller
Difference Between Pain and Suffering
There is a Buddhist teaching that says that when you get hurt, say, by an arrow, that is pain. The arrow hitting your arm, it hurts. Pain. However, there is a second arrow, which is your reaction to the arrow, the getting angry, the planning revenge, that is beyond pain, that is suffering.