Artwork "Open Window" by Sandy Jones

ABOUT SUFFERING AND DEATH

By William Samuel (1986)

Winter comes with a rush this year. From summer to winter without a fall at all. Freshly cut hickory and oak are all set to burn in Ben, the Franklin stove, tonight. The water pipes have been wrapped. Sam and Sally have their doses of anti-freeze. If it gets really cold, I may try a little anti-freeze myself.

Dear Loretta, It is the human sense of of things that moves in circles and seasons. It is the human sense of things that watches the cycles of human existence from birth to death, from joy one moment, to suffering and anguish the next. And it is the human sense of things that insists on understanding the why, why, why of suffering, anguish and death.

Once a man came here from England and wanted me to talk about my personal suffering—apparently to better understand his own. I refused, asking him why I should tell of my suffering rather than the Light I had come to discover. “Why not talk abut the positive side of the coin rather than the negative? Why not tell of what is delineated rather than the delineator?” He left unsatisfied and angry. Were he to ask me about suffering today, I would do my best to answer, albeit I'm not certain I could say much that makes sense to the human sense of us, or to our vaunted “understanding.”

To this tangible human viewing, I have suffered as much as anyone. Perhaps more. It is only the human viewing that believes “enlightenment” does away with tangible anguish and suffering. There is the common belief among metaphysicians that since the Truth “heals,” the advent of enlightenment must surely bring an end to suffering—even an end to death. But in the human scene, the enlightened do not suffer less, but often more. Jesus cried in anguish, asking God why He had forsaken him. His disciples, with the exception of John, suffered all the way to their own executions. Paul carried his “tormentor” with him to his appearance of death. Mrs. Eddy suffered on and ON. Aiken suffered on. Goldsmith suffered on. Watts, deWaters, Laird. None of their enlightenment prevented the appearances, within tangibility, of bodily decline and death.

The human sense of “me” (the fiction, the belief) has had an awful (to human sense) “tormentor” most of my life. But does burning the sheet of music do anything to the principle of music? Does the torment we dream do anything to the dreamer on the bed except eventually awaken him?

So we find reference to pain and suffering in K's journal—again and again. But he, as I, speaks about a state of mind that is beyond feeling and thought, about meditation that is explosive in nature and sometimes accompanied by physical pain.

For me, the viewing of suffering out there with others has been my external delineation of Joy “here as I”—the feeling of anguish and suffering “here, as 'myself'” is the delineator of Joy supernal—accepted on faith alone, internally. Oh, this doesn't say it at all!

Loretta, do the flowers and grasses suffer when the first frost hits them? Do the insects that perish suffer when winter descends as it inevitably does? Do they really suffer death from the cold? Or is it like a circle, a cycle, that renews itself with the spring that is also inevitable? Holistically speaking, the grasses, the flowers, the bugs come back when the cycle turns warm again—and “death: is only a resting in time and its seasons. Holistically speaking, there is no end of human or personal life even though there appears to be a suffering decline unto death to our tangible viewing. But our tangible viewing is the action of Awareness, of Life itself, which sees the seasons repeat themselves in an endless flow of seasons, called “Eternity.” How do I know this is so? Because I see the cycles repeat themselves and I see the seasons return.

When I finally heard and felt and saw the Symphony for which this physical body is the sheet of music, I became the Symphony, no longer limited as the printed page. But, listen, listen, to hear and feel the Symphony is only to accept it on faith alone! We merely accept the existence of the Symphony for which all tangibility is the sheet of music. That is all. It takes the sting from death and allows us to understand the “why” of tangibility's suffering. It says that suffering, here or there, is like the dark night that makes Light plain. The Light is real. The darkness only a seeming. Joy is real. The suffering only a seeming—albeit seeming very real. When we begin thinking holistically (solipsistically or subjectively), we stop believing ourselves to be mere leaves on the tree and begin thinking in terms of tree. The leaf falls off the tree, so what? The Tree lives. This body grows old and perishes, so what? LIFE goes right on, untouched. Life is individual, alone all in all. It only appears divided into billions of people and countless forms of life... in the same way a single light appears divided into many colors when it flows through a prism.

The REAL of Bill, Loretta, Rachel and Paul is NOT suffering unto death. The real of us is LIFE, GOD-Life—and it is single, only and all. Paul and Bill may seem to suffer and decline—but that seeming, seen holistically, is not real and has no power. The seeming is an “is-not” making the IS of Reality plain to Awareness—just as darkness makes the Light plain. The Light is REAL, darkness its means of being understood.

Loretta, like you, I grow tired of words and their limitations. I am weary of trying to explain things that are purely HEART-felt and have to do with simple faith beyond thoughts and feelings. This is why I publish so little now. The overtones have said it all already, as nearly as it can be said in words.

Excerpt from The Child Within Us Lives! A Synthesis of Science, Religion and Metaphysics By William Samuel

If you would like further guidance in understanding any of William Samuel's work based on Self discovery - you are welcome to contact me, Sandy Jones -- samuelandfriends@gmail.com - Ojai, California -