Of Love and Suffering

 There are two great forces that awaken the soul: love and suffering. Both come as teachers, and both change us forever.

Great love is not ordinary. It is not casual or convenient. It is the kind of love that dissolves all separation and makes you remember that you belong to something eternal. When love of this magnitude touches your life, it humbles you. It softens the ego and stretches the heart so wide that you cannot return to who you were before. Great love is a holy fire, it consumes what is false and awakens what is true.

And then there is suffering. We do not ask for it, yet it arrives as part of the human journey. It cracks us open in ways that nothing else can. When we lose what we thought we could not live without, when grief sits heavy on the chest, when the ground falls out from under us, this is when the soul is forced to wake up. Suffering strips us bare, and though the fire of it is fierce, it forges compassion, tenderness, and depth that no easy life could ever give.

Both love and suffering carry us closer to the Divine. One lifts us toward ecstasy, the other pulls us into the depths of humility. But each one leads us to the same truth, that the soul is vast, resilient, and made for transformation.

If you find yourself in love, let it expand you. Let it be the prayer that teaches you to surrender. If you find yourself in suffering, let it shape you. Trust that even in your darkest hour, something sacred is being born.

Love awakens. Suffering awakens. Both are blessings, though they come dressed in such different forms. And both remind us, in their own way: the soul is eternal, and it is always being called home.

~Shanti Freedom Das