26 May 2016 - QA 14

When you are with me, then why do I always suffer? Why is there misery in my life?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

I think you don't realize that you have help.

Let me ask you, how can there be suffering all the time? If it is always, you can't feel it. You can feel suffering only in contrast. And just remember, whenever you had some pain or suffering, you came out of it. You had the strength to endure it, and you came out of it. You have always found that you have had some help. Hasn't this been happening?

Look back in life. What you must take care of is not generalizing or eternalizing our problems. If you encounter a few cheats around you, you will generalize, "Oh, everyone is a cheat". If you have come across a few people who are sick, you will say, "Oh, the entire city is sick". Everybody is sick these days. This is impossible, everyone cannot be sick. We have this tendency to generalise and eternalize: I am always lazy, I am always suffering. I am always angry. Even a few moments of discomfort makes you feel like you have always had this. This is eternalizing a problem.

If you stop generalizing and eternalizing your problems, you will see that problems are just the tail of a dog. God give an animal a tail it can wag it easily. Just imagine if a dog has an elephant's tail which it can't even lift because it is so big. Everyone has a tail that they can easily wag. Similarly, everyone gets a problem that they can easily endure and get over it.