Human Beings and Suffering

Human Beings and Suffering

Ever since the birth of mankind on this planet, and in spite of having passed many stages of so called progress, development, growth or evolution, whatever we name it, the inherent weaknesses of humans have been the same. The basic animal instincts of insecurity, fear, aggression have always been there in humans. And more purely human attributes of avarice, lust, exploitation, pretension etc. have made human life more painful. Survival mechanism has been used by the mighty to perpetrate more and more atrocities on the weak. Feudal tendencies have always worked on the theory of exploitation- where various names are given from time to time to justify the dictum- might is right. Even the so called development of civilizations across the earth and rule of law, have not been able to check these tendencies. In one form or the other the rich and the powerful have been suppressing the resourceless and weak.

What have our so called evolved souls whom we call prophets, rishis or gurus, been able to achieve? May be, they were able to understand this truth and tried in their contexts to educate the masses to shun these tendencies for the collective good of all. But other than dividing the mankind into further groups and sects, they achieved little else. From fearing the Nature and imaginary gods, the mankind now fears known gods and religious dogmas, but the basic instincts have not changed. Even where there is no fear of any godly acts like in case of atheists- the situation is no different. Given a chance a human being will succumb to greed, lust, aggression, corruption in the name of survival.

The ones who understand it ' the so called attainment of gyan or enlightenment- also cannot escape the suffering, if not for themselves, then for others. Even if they renounce the world or move away from rat race- certain attachments which are inherent in human nature become reasons of their suffering. The feeling of bliss or paramanand is limited to only a glimpse and the moment of reckoning or enlightenment- rest of their lives are no different. The fate of the ones who are powerful and at the top of the survival hierarchy is no different either- they are also prone to suffering for various reasons- the discontentment persists.

Then, is it in the genes of humans to remain suffering and discontented? Is it because of the state of imperfection this world is said to be? Is it because the entire living experience is an illusion-maya and so it has to be fake- resulting in dissatisfaction?

From time immemorial the human civilization has seen many cycles of evolution, ultimately progressing in no direction- from barbarians to empires and then only the change in nature of empires from physical to political to economic to technological- the basic instinct of feudalism has been transforming. This is no progression, only transformation. So how can the suffering end if the cause of suffering is constantly around? Ghalib perhaps understood this cosmic reality and so he wrote:

Qaid-e-hyat-o-bande-gham, dono asal mein ek hain

Maut se pehle aadmi gham se nijaat paye kyuon

Rajiv Sharma