Why We Suffer

The Unexplainable Theory, Unanswered Questions, 

The Mystery of Why We Suffer

For the medieval dualist Bogomils of the Balkans and their offshoots the Albigensians and Cathars of France and Italy, this world was a hell hole. Everything really paled and failed- people, animals, the stars and the Moon, all of it. This world is a horrible place, and cannot be the creation of a compassionate and loving God when one witnesses and hears about the terrible events that have plagued humanity and all the Earth's creatures since the supposed beginning of time. Yes, there are moments of pure joy and happiness to be sure, as life is a combination of many experiences that can be either pleasant or unpleasant. But we all know that a perfect life is not what any of us will experience. Whether we simply break a limb as we play as innocent children or face terrible events in which we are scarred physically or emotionally for the rest of our days, we know that everything in our life is dual. We learn this at an early age and know this to be the fact of life, yet everything we seem to create around us shows that we try and pretend that this is not the case. There is no question that we prefer the positive, the joyful, the beneficial in life but know that just as the night overtakes the day our joy will eventually be followed by sadness. This is not only a fact of life but this is a fact of our very existence, and the existence of every thing, animate and inanimate, whether here on Earth, on some spinning planet or pertaining to a comet flying through the heavens at breakneck speed. Everything that exists will one day not exist, as everything that does exist will eventually break down and dissipate. We know this and accept this yet we try our utmost to avoid this reality.

We often hear about free will, and there of course is an element of free will in our decision making. If we smoke or drink too much, there is danger of developing diseases such as emphysema or alcohol addiction and liver damage. Obesity and poor eating habits may lead to diabetes and heart disease, just as reading in poorly lit rooms may cause problems with eyesight. Back strain is the result of too much exertion, and indeed any kind of overindulgence has it's price. Even animals have to make decisions. When a water buffalo chooses to drink water in a river inundated with crocodiles or a bear decides to rip apart a beehive for the honey, risking being stung dozens if not hundreds of times. A choice is made and the decision carefully weighed before any action is taken. We all do this, we make decisions as to a course of action, from the human being to the tiny ant.

In the same vein, we can choose not to board a rickety boat to cross the sea or refuse to ride a lame horse across a plain because we know what the consequences might be. Yet, people make the decision to travel and do something they deem safe and sound all the time, traveling in trusted vehicles or modes of transport or choose to live in place where their lives might be improved and happy, with all good intentions, just as they eat healthy and attempt to live a content and fulfilling lifestyle. Some lives do attain to contentment and happiness, as families impart their values and beliefs to their offspring in the hope that they will carry on what they learned from their own forefathers. Some are successful and lead peaceful lives, while others face just the opposite of what they strove for. The area where they moved and migrated to might experience an earthquake, a tornado or a hurricane, the supposedly sound boat they chose to travel on- think of the 'unsinkable' and in it's time the thoroughly modern Titanic and what happened to that vessel. People attempt to live as healthy a lifestyle as they can and still become diseased and die. Look at the invasions in human history and the results of those devastating invasions. Yes, it is the free will of man to choose whether or not to invade, make war and kill, and it is the free will of the would be/soon to be conquered victims to decide that events and the political climate are getting dangerous and they can and should move away to safety. But what free will does the baby sleeping in a household about to be ransacked by barbarians possess? The old woman who is raped and tortured at the hands of tyrants didn't ask for that treatment. Some might say she was an awful person all her life, as if she deserves the treatment or others might conclude that she was a near saint who helped her neighbors at every turn and was generous in giving charity. But we make excuses that she had free will, and mankind was gifted with the free will to not inflict pain and sorrow on their fellow human beings. The animals randomly tortured or put to death for amusement or as part of a sport also were gifted with free will. The giraffe or the boar can by sheer will and determination evade the stalking cheetah but can it escape it's fate which could be that it becomes as so often the meal of the wild cat? Or the eye of the hunter and his high powered rifle? If God exists, why does he insist on killing, torture and bloodshed so that others might live? Circle of life? Hm. Tell that to the mother of the children who were crushed in the rubble of a falling building due to an earthquake or a fire caused by a lighting strike or a faulty wire. And what of those young, beautiful children who are doomed with an incurable disease?

Nonsense say the Bogomils, who themselves were influenced by the teachings of a 3rd century prophet from what is now modern Iraq named Mani, who himself was inspired by the Gnostics and their knowledge from around the BC/AD time of Jesus. Mani taught, like Zoroaster, that the universe is made up of two continually opposing forces, Light and Dark therefore Good and Evil. The Bogomils taught that the world, the Moon and Sun, the planets and the heavenly bodies of the universe were all brought about by a collision of light and dark. The elements of the dark brought forth Satanel and he created what we know of as matter. Thus he represents all that we call evil and in many religious teachings the devil or Satan. Thinking that he fooled the God of Light and boasting that he can bring forth and maintain his creation, the God of Light- full of goodness, compassionate, merciful and kind, without fault and imperfection, pure light...Satanel reclined and rested as he admired his own creation and handiwork. So God breathed into each of the creations which Satanel brought forth a bit of his own, holy spirit, thus corrupting Satanel's creation. This is how free will came about, so that each individual can use this free will to think and make decisions, so that Mankind can choose, if he or she so desires, to "do the right thing" and make the right choices. The spirit of God is imprisoned in every body, every human and animal, every tree and flower, in every living thing, and only in death can it be freed. This is how God fooled Satan. At the end of time, the spirit of all things will return to their source and as one the Light will overpower the Dark. This can be found at the very root of all religious teachings, this final victory of Light over Dark, Spirit over Matter.

Yet Mani and subsequently the Bogomils acknowledged something that few dared to admit: that what we see as creation and our world could not have been created by a compassionate, loving and kind God who watches over everyone and protects them constantly. He is not in full control of everything, since if he is, then he is clearly thwarted by the powers of negativity. Bad things continually happen to good people or to innocent animals. We have no explanation for why this is, and many of us choose to simply say that this is part of God's plan. Every reason, all of which border on actual excuses, is voiced to attempt to give a reason why a baby dies or an healthy animal all of a sudden becomes sick. Darwin analyzed life and called it survival of the fittest. Mani says that some beings are not meant to be 'fittest' because they have been corrupted by the collision of Light and Dark. The person might be the sweetest person we know, caring and good, yet doomed with an incurable disease to an early death, leaving us sad and wondering why a god of love could not leave that person with us a bit longer. Mani explains Jesus' crucifixion in the manner: his body, the flesh, was destined to deteriorate as all flesh must deteriorate since it was created of matter and thereby created by the Darkness. Evil must by it's very nature seek to destroy goodness. But the soul of Jesus, which in Christian teaching "sits at the right hand of the Father" returns to it's source and becomes one with that source. Jesus is freed from that dark prison and lives eternally in the realm of Light.

Mani himself was convicted and tortured by the Magi, the established Zoroastrian religious body of Persia in the 3rd century. Jesus was convicted and found guilty by the Sanhendrin rabbis of Jerusalem, who cruelly used Roman law to make him out to be a zealous rebel and convict him and sentence him to death. John the Baptist met a similar fate. Moses in his time was first confronted and challenged by none other than the Egyptian temple priests. Wasn't it Abraham's father who was an idol maker for the religious authorities of Nimrod who sought God's friend's demise? Later on in 7th century Arabia Mohammed would face the wrath of the pagan religious authorities in Mecca who saw him as disrupting established practice and social custom. The Sufi mystic Mansur Hallaj dared to express his love and proximity, nay his union, to God and was executed by the orthodox Muslim ulema of Baghdad. Lastly let us not forget that Martin Luther challenged and in turn was challenged by the church, who gladly would have had him roasted like a pig for having the audacity to counter the religious authority of his day. The conclusion, according to the Bogomil and Manichaean thought and teaching? Religion is a creation of mankind, and since mankind is a further creation of the Lord of the Dark in it's matter-form, religion too must be corrupted and imperfect. The cruelty of religious authorities in the past and even into the present time which display a complete lack of pity, mercy or compassion, testify to this corruption. All religions have had to be reformed and updated, overhauled, revamped and rethought. If they do not they become tyrannical, thus revealing something underneath their outer veneer.

Perhaps Mani was right after all. All religious scriptures claim that only God is indeed perfect, though this basic accepted universal 'truth' is concealed beneath a plethora of beliefs, practices, laws and dogmas. Religions can be, and have been for the most part, a tool for evil. While they provided support and comfort to millions and have produced some remarkable human beings who have been an example and encouragement for good and of benefit to the masses, the questions still remain as to why a body such as an established religious institution can produce such exemplary beings as those we might consider as saints and the elect, yet approve and endorse war, conquest, slavery and the subjugation of women as many religious bodies actually have. There is no spiritual explanatory narrative that better explains, if any explanatory narrative is pertinent at all, than Mani's teaching that we are all created as a combination of two opposing forces: look to the light and the world will be somewhat a better place, and certainly the future will be better for you than the present. I use the word 'somewhat' because it is our destiny to laugh and cry, experience joy and pain, happiness and sadness, gaze upon a beautiful world and the entire universe with all the wonder contained in that gazing, yet know that at any moment terror can strike and will strike when we least expect it to do so. Just as the gazelle knows not when a lion will crush it's neck in one swift movement, we know not what will become of us today, tomorrow or in ten years or fifty if we live that long. There is only the Light and the willingness to do good and spread good to counter evil and the darkness that is, by it's own nature destined to be encroaching upon us for all our existence. Live life as if we hang in the balance, and do not fully trust anything you can feel with your hands. Love your family and all those around you, your friends and those who have come into your space, as they possess the soul of God within them and thus you are to honor that presence. But make no mistake about it, a person can change at the drop of a hat and nations can change as quickly, situations alter and drastically at that. A popular song from the 60's by the Byrds, they quoted Ecclesiastes to see that everything turns, turns, turns.

There is a saying in Albanian: "where there is religion one finds the sword". This saying reflects the lives of the medieval peoples of the Balkans, who were never sure where safety would come from as they were being inundated by invading armies causing continuous war and persecuted by corrupt churches intent on doing the devils work in the name of God. Both the ancient Hebrews and the Aztecs conquered a 'promised land' in the name of a divine right which they believed was theirs and theirs alone, exterminating whole populations and establishing their own kingdoms in the name of the God of the Sun or the most Holy. Christianity was given power by Constantine who saw a cross in the heavens in a dream, accompanied by a voice which exclaimed "by this sign ye shall conquer". He and his soldiers supposedly saw this sign in the sky, fought and won a battle and the rest is history. Charlemagne would follow suit and slaughter tens of thousands of Saxons in the name of Christ and build a church in his honor on every field where his armies were victorious. The Church of the day would sanction the Spanish and Portuguese conquest of Central and South America, exterminating hundreds of millions in the process. The armies of Islam would conquer Persia and India, Africa and Turkestan and rule it with a Caliph who would be the very agent of Allah on Earth, much like the Popes who indeed considered themselves the vicars of Christ. The conquest of India by Muslim armies would, over the centuries, result in the deaths of some 80 million Hindus. Hinduism itself would see a caste system that relegated tens of millions to a form of neo serfdom just as Buddhist monks in Tibet would live well in their monasteries while peasants in the Himalayas starved. The Mongols believed that the world was created for their horses, and the worship of the four winds demanded that there be nothing to stand in the way of tribes of horsemen intent on plunder. Religion gets formulated and created, and while there is an element of benefit in all religious narratives and the civilizations they inspire, there has been and remains a rather equal aspect of oppression and tyranny performed shamelessly in religion's name. The expansion of the United States, though a secular democracy, was nonetheless inspired by the concept of Manifest Destiny which resulted in the deaths and expulsion of millions of native Americans and the conquest of land belonging to Mexico. Somehow, God could be summoned to bless and support the conquests of those who are doing the conquering, and the innocent always tend to become the guilty in their eyes. Northerners and Southerners both would fight a Civil War believing God was on their side as they debated whether slavery was Christian or not, yet few asked or cared what the descendants of African slaves: who were forced converted and thus lost their connection to their own traditional religions...thought or felt in the process.

While the vast majority of the believers in a divine being in the world- those who follow a great world religion...are benign people at best, seeking only to live their lives with a touch of enlightenment which they get from their respective faiths, most of these people follow the dictates of their compiled and formulated religious dogmas which any particular community holds to be true. Thus, many religions claim that those who follow other religious scriptures or guidance are the 'other' and therefore not necessarily quite as qualified for an eternal abode in paradise as the believers of the particular faith are. Somehow, one group gets it right while the others have it wrong, are misguided or have been duped by the devil. God, who is defined as all powerful and perfect, for some reason ceases to be all powerful and perfect when people are following a particular religiously held belief or dogma. Some beings are less than others, non believers not worthy of salvation, women might be seen as less than men, those who prefer same sex companionship are only seen as fuel for hellfire, some animals are seen as dirty and unclean. God, that loving and compassionate all knowing creator of perfection is suddenly not loving or compassionate, and his creations are less than perfect in the narratives of many world religions. Mani got this right too: if God is perfect he/she cannot be imperfect and if this beautiful deity is all loving and kind, then this deity is also incapable of being unloving and cruel. Therefore, there must be something wrong with religion. Since it is created by men it is clearly an extension of evil and ultimately of the dark, fostered and inspired by the darkness to lead mankind astray.

Trust in the God of goodness, the source of Light and all good things, and trust in this sublime being alone. Due to the nature of the universe and creation itself light is countered by the dark, good is forever countered by evil. This is the only explanation that could make sense of all the suffering that all beings experience. Matter is finite, light eternal. This can be found in every spiritual scripture and teaching, but it is only Mani's religion: once a universal faith practiced from the shores of the Pacific to the coasts of the Atlantic...which feared not to exclaim truth without hesitation, knowing full well the fate which awaited those who dared to reveal the eternal secret of our existence. The cosmic battle is fought on our persons and in our midst. It is the gift of free will, granted to humanity when the soul of light entered the body, which helps us decide which force we will fight for, the army of angelic light and good or the hordes of darkness comprised of the warriors of evil.