Do We Have A Choice In Suffering?

First of all, I want to thank you and Eckhart for everything that you've given me and are giving me now. It's so greatly appreciated. I'm not sure if it's a question, but it's some. I need a response from you to clarify. It deals with a pain body and challenges, overcoming challenges, transcending challenges. And then I heard, I think I heard you say this morning, I heard Eckhart say yesterday, the good news is we don't have to suffer. So five years ago, coming up to five years, my son died. And I went through. He died suddenly. So it was. And he also was my best friend. So it was a. I can't even think about the suffering that I went through at that time. You know, it's just like it was, oh, I wailed, I cried, and it was. I didn't have for months. I just went there in that suffering, that pain and that broken heart was torn apart. And I remember to the point I was crawling on the ground. I have a place down by the sea. And I was there and he loved that place and we spent many wonderful times there together. And I was crawling on the ground and crying and I heard him say to me, dad, stop that. And that came to me. A shift happened. It was a change there. Of course, I've transcended it and I've overcome it. Not completely. I never will overcome that completely, I don't think. But what I want clarification from you on is I don't really believe, I don't fully understand that one can transcend, overcome or have a choice in certain situations concerning that type of suffering. So there's where I'm wondering when you say we don't have to suffer, we do have a choice, I'm saying has not been my experience in that case.

You know, as I said earlier, and what Eckhart says is suffering is our greatest teacher. So the suffering is teaching you and you already know that in order to go beyond that suffering, that that's the evolution of human consciousness through you. So consciousness is awakening through you. So not to say that I almost see you and sense that in order to hold on to the memory of your son, that the fear of letting go of the suffering will somehow get you be less connected to your son. Yeah. And that's not the case. And that's what your son was saying to you. You don't have to, you don't have to suffer because you will be actually more connected to your son without the suffering being there.

Yeah, in a way he Tells me that.

Yeah, yeah, he's telling you that. And he's saying to you, dad, you don't have to suffer. I'm right here.

Well, could you say that again, please? No. Just tell me that I'm going to be more connected with my son by not suffering.

Yeah, absolutely. Because the suffering is just getting in the way for that real connection of not of the form. The form is gone. Every form will pass away. But what is left behind is the essence. And that true essence lives in you. Your son and you are no different. It's the same essence. So you're going to be more connected to yourself, which is also your son. And that's the gift, through his death, that he's leaving you is that space, that empty space, that void that he's leaving behind for you to go deeper.

Well, you know, it explains. When I go to his grave these days, I don't feel that suffering. I feel peace. So that's a wonderful gift. I know he gives me those gifts. And he's more present in a very positive way, in almost a jovial way, you know, because I'm trying to communicate with him. Sometimes he just laughs at my way of making efforts to communicate with him. More or less saying, I'm right beside you kind of thing.

Yeah, exactly. It's right here. It's all right here.

Thank you very much.

I have to share this story, this last story, because when Maya, our dog, passed away last September and a few months before that, my father passed away. And actually, Maya was kind of in that very critical mode even when my father was passing. And it was like, who's going to go first? That sort of thing. And it was obvious my father was going first. And I said to my father, you know, Maya's going to come right after you soon after. Will you greet her? And when Maya, she died at home in my arms. And when she was passing away in my arms, I felt my father's presence come. And then I felt them both there, joyful. It was like they were so happy. And it was just like, wow, this is incredible. And it brought such peace and such joy. There was no. There was just absolutely no fear, Nothing. I just felt this incredible sense of joy. And I knew that joy was emanating from the essence of who they were. And it was just absolutely, so beautiful. You know, they're still there. I could still feel them when they passed. And when my father. Because my father passed first, I was able to touch into that. That empty voice, that void of just. I remember being in, you know, Getting ready to change and in my closet and just like, wow, I miss him and that emptiness. And then I went into that emptiness. And suddenly there was this tremendous peace there. And it was just like, wow, that emptiness is God itself. And we are God itself through the form. And eventually all forms, as they always do, leave. And it leaves you with emptiness, which is really your God nature, which is God. You're left with God. And he's saying, you're left with God. Don't hold on to the suffering anymore. Because the suffering and the attachment to the form is keeping you stuck. It's keeping you further away from God. God is all around us, right here, right now, through every living being, nature. And yet beyond all of that, beyond the form, it's just here. And the forms pop up, but yet stillness is here. God is here. That little space that Eckhart talked about all of a sudden became big. That's how it works. You take that little space and you go right into that space. And soon enough, that space just there is more space in this universe than there are stars in the sky. And how beautiful it is that we get to witness the stars and have the experience of our children, of our parents, even though they can bring us to unconsciousness sometimes. But, you know, saying all that when they're on their deathbed, do you think about that? Well, sometimes you do if you're in the grip still of the pain body. But as we begin to awaken, we tap into something else that we begin to see right through their own pain. Because that pain that they feel is no different than our own. And we know if we can transcend the pain within ourselves. So too, when we look then at the other in their pain, we don't see them only as pain, only as their pain body. In other words, we see the essence of who they are. And the pain body is just a temporary thing. We'll get these gifts. And as we become older and older, the things and the people around us pass on. And we're left with this emptiness. And in that emptiness, you can say, is also fullness. Because you are one with God. You've merged with the essence of who you are. And you don't feel that emptiness. You become filled with peace, with love, with joy. Thank you.