If we suffer in the sufferings of others and feel happy in the happiness of others, we are loving God.

In the East they say suffering is avoidable and not necessary. Life is bliss! You know why? This is because wisdom, yoga and meditation are ways to avoid suffering which has not yet come.

If we endure all things patiently and with gladness, thinking on the sufferings of our Blessed Lord, and bearing all for the love of Him: herein is perfect joy.

Neurosis is the suffering of a soul which has not discovered its meaning.

The root of suffering is attachment.

As we develop a deeper self-awareness, we learn to acknowledge suffering without identifying with it. Eventually, we even transcend it.

External circumstances can only cause you physical pain. Suffering is created in your mind.

By all means attend to your duties. Action, in which you are not emotionally involved and which is beneficial and does not cause suffering will not bind you. You may be engaged in several directions and work with enormous zest, yet remain inwardly free and quiet, with a mirror like mind, which reflects all, without being affected.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could spare them from all suffering? No, it wouldn't. They would not evolve as human beings and would remain shallow, identified with the external form of things. Suffering drives you deeper. The paradox is that suffering is caused by identification with form and erodes identification with form. A lot of it is caused by the ego, although eventually suffering destroys the ego-but not until you suffer consciously.

How long do we wish to continue this drama, this play of karma, this play of emotion, anger, jealousy, fear, frustration, and worry? We choose whether we want to continue the drama a little longer. Gurudev liked to use the expression, “The world is the play of kiss and kick.” This world is full of suffering, but little pleasure. A little sweetness, lots of sourness. Gurudev used to call it a “sugar-coated bitter tablet.”

After realization, whether a jnani takes another body is up to them, because he or she has no remaining karma. First, seekers must decide whether they want realization. Then they must ask themselves why they want to be realized. Realization means to be free. Free from what? Free from all suffering: duhkha nivritti. If someone is free from all suffering, what happens? Eternal bliss. If the goal is to achieve eternal bliss by being free from suffering, whether a realized one returns or not, if they are in a state of bliss, does it matter if they stay or leave?

The way to truth lies through the destruction of the false. To destroy the false, you must question your most inveterate beliefs. Of these the idea that you are the body is the worst. With the body comes the world, with the world - God, who is supposed to have created the world and thus it starts - fears, religions, prayers, sacrifices, all sorts of systems - all to protect and support the child-man, frightened out of his wits by monsters of his own making. Realize that what you are cannot be born nor die and with the fear gone, all suffering ends.

Whether you create, or you observe an objective piece of creativity, meditation should be the key. Without it, mind can only spread on the canvas its nightmares. Most of the paintings of the great painters like Paul Gaugin or Picasso are almost like vomit. They could not contain their agony and suffering - it was so much they threw it on the canvas to get relief. The real objective art is not a relief; it is not a sickness that you want to get rid of. It is a blissfulness that you want to share. And by sharing, it grows; you have more of it, the more it is shared.

A student, filled with emotion and crying, implored, "Why is there so much suffering?" Suzuki Roshi replied, "No reason."

Even Avataras, saints, and sages have to undergo the ordeal of suffering, for they take upon themselves the burden of sins of omission and commission of ordinary human beings and thereby sacrifice themselves for the good of humanity.

Don't be afraid. Human birth is full of suffering and one has to endure everything patiently, taking the Name of God. None, not even God in human form can escape the sufferings of the body and mind.

The main cause of your suffering is the seed of anger in you, because it has been watered too often, by yourself and by other people.

Worthless are those who injure others vengefully, while those who stoically endure are like stored gold. The gratification of the vengeful lasts only for a day, but the glory of the forbearing lasts until the end of time. Though unjustly aggrieved, it is best to suffer the suffering and refrain from unrighteous retaliation.

Suffering lets us see where our attachments are - and that helps us get free.

I don't think too much about the future. Not because I'm hiding my head in the sand but because I figured out that whatever the future was going to be, the thing I had to do was to quiet my mind and open my heart and do what I could to end suffering.

I say unto you that suffering is not holding you, you are holding suffering.

Along with faith comes the requirement for dogged persistence. At first meditation may bring you mild highs or some relief from suffering. But there may come a time - just as there does in the development of any skill - when there will be a plateau. You may be bored, discouraged, or even negative and cynical. This is when you will need not only faith, but persistence.

The essence of the teaching is that you are the ultimate reality, and if you would know yourself as that, then all your problems would be solved. You’ll be able to overcome all the sufferings of life … There is no greater adventure in human life, no greater challenge in human life, no greater purpose or goal in human life, than to know this and to realize it in our life.