When suffering leads to real, eternal happiness, we should not attach importance to this suffering. It is to eliminate suffering that suffering has to be. People suffer because they are not satisfied. They want more and more. Ignorance gives rise to greed and vanity. If you want nothing, would you then suffer? But you do want. If you did not want anything, you would not suffer even in the jaws of a lion.
The widespread dissatisfaction in modern life is due to the gulf between theory and practice, between the ideal and its realization on earth. The spiritual and material aspects of life are widely separated instead of being closely united. There is no fundamental opposition between spirit and matter or, if you like, between life and form. The apparent opposition is due to wrong thinking – to ignorance.
The best and also the easiest way of overcoming the ego and attaining Divine Consciousness is to develop love and render selfless service to all humanity in whatever circumstances we may be placed. All ethics and religious practices lead to this. The more we live for others, the less we live for ourselves, and thus the more debased desires are eliminated. This in turn reacts upon the ego, suppressing it and transforming it proportionately.
The root of all our difficulties, individual and social, is self-interest. Eliminate self-interest and you will solve all your problems – individual and social.
The world will soon realize that neither cults, creeds, dogmas, religious ceremonies, lectures and sermons on the one hand, nor on the other hand ardent seeking for material or physical pleasures, can ever bring about real happiness. Only selfless love and universal brotherhood can bring happiness.