Detachment and suffering

[Trailblazer]

It is like a painting on a wall. I just point to it and would never force anyone to look at it.

Regards Tony

You do not need to point me to it because I already know it is there...
I have been a Baha'i for over 51 years, so I know what is in the Writings.

 

[Trailblazer]

Yet you speak very harshly towards Lewis.

No, I do not speak harshly to Lewis, although sometimes when I am explaining my situation I speak harshly about him.

You are not the one who has been hurt, so you cannot ever understand what it feels like to be in my shoes.

 

[Truthseeker]

It is not in my interest either. That is just your religious belief that comes from Abdu'l-Baha, but I do not share it.
Whenever there is a discrepancy I go by what Baha'u'llah wrote.

64: O OPPRESSORS ON EARTH! Withdraw your hands from tyranny, for I have pledged Myself not to forgive any man’s injustice. This is My covenant which I have irrevocably decreed in the preserved tablet and sealed with My seal.”
Hidden Words of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 44

There is no contradicion between forgiving someone, which benefits us, not the offender, and seeing that justice is done to deter wrongdoers in the future. See Some Answered Questions.

For example, if someone oppresses, injures and wrongs another, and the wronged man retaliates, this is vengeance and is censurable. If the son of 'Amr kills the son of Zayd, Zayd has not the right to kill the son of 'Amr; if he does so, this is vengeance. If 'Amr dishonors Zayd, the latter has not the right to dishonor 'Amr; if he does so, this is vengeance, and it is very reprehensible. No, rather he must return good for evil, and not only forgive, but also, if possible, be of service to his oppressor. This conduct is worthy of man: for what advantage does he gain by vengeance? The two actions are equivalent; if one action is reprehensible, both are reprehensible. The only difference is that one was committed first, the other later.

But the community has the right of defense and of self-protection; moreover, the community has no hatred nor animosity for the murderer: it imprisons or punishes him merely for the protection and security of others. It is not for the purpose of taking vengeance upon the murderer, but for the purpose of inflicting a punishment by which the community will be protected. If the community and the inheritors of the murdered one were to forgive and return good for evil, the cruel would be continually ill-treating others, and assassinations would continually occur. Vicious people, like wolves, would destroy the sheep of God. The community has no ill-will and rancor in the infliction of punishment, and it does not desire to appease the anger of the heart; its purpose is by punishment to protect others so that no atrocious actions may be committed.
(Abdu'l-Baha, Some Answered Questions, p. 269)

Every time you see something that looks like a discrepancy to you between 'Abdu'l-Baha and Baha'u'llah, I beg you, please try to resolve the apparent disceptancy first before you conclude there is a discreptancy. Remember, 'Abdu'l-Baha is the infallible interpreter.

 

[TransmutingSoul]

No, I do not speak harshly to Lewis, although sometimes when I am explaining my situation I speak harshly about him.

You are not the one who has been hurt, so you cannot ever understand what it feels like to be in my shoes.
View attachment 64606

We all see it different Susan.

Also I would offer it is good to consider that one does not know how any other has been 'Hurt' and that in this reality we are all human, we have the same emotions and can wear many different types of shoes, though the sizes are not suited to all.

Regards Tony

 

[TransmutingSoul]

There is no contradicion between forgiving someone, which benefits us, not the offender, and seeing that justice is done to deter wrongdoers in the future. See Some Answered Questions.

Personally I see forgiveness is a great bounty to both parties, both can learn from the experience.

This process is now used by the courts.

The issue I see is the Materialism aspect of suing, it has become rabid in America and has been creeping into the Australian mentality for a couple of generations now.

As stated, there is a balance needed as in some cases, compensation may be required to support young children.

Yet, when we again build strong communities, the support will always be there in all these difficult times.

Regards Tony

 

[Trailblazer]

There is no contradicion between forgiving someone, which benefits us, not the offender, and seeing that justice is done to deter wrongdoers in the future. See Some Answered Questions.

I understand that there is no contradiction on a purely logical basis, but I do not have to believe that forgiveness always benefits us, and I do not think it is necessary or prudent to forgive everyone, regardless of the situation. I do not care what the Abdu'l-Baha says. You can either accept that or you can believe I am a bad Baha'i, I don't care. It is a miracle that I am still a Baha'i at all, for reasons you already know about.

Every time you see something that looks like a discrepancy to you between 'Abdu'l-Baha and Baha'u'llah, I beg you, please try to resolve the apparent disceptancy first before you conclude there is a discrepancy. Remember, 'Abdu'l-Baha is the infallible interpreter.

I do not think there is a discrepancy but I still do not believe what Abdu'l-Baha wrote about forgiveness. Maybe part of that is because I cannot forgive easily, I don't know, but there are many more important spiritual qualities I need to focus on. Usually if I cannot forgive when I feel I have been wronged I put every effort into trying to find out if I was really wronged or not, before I forgive a person.

On another note, one of the Baha'is in my community just called me and he is trying to help. He retired from a career as a medical social worker for the VA. He knows hospital systems and how they operate. He also has a background in psychology so he understands what is going on with Lewis, and he concurs that Lewis is not competent to make his own decisions because he is too childlike and that Lewis has a serious anxiety problem.

He recommended that I step back from Lewis, not get all emotional about whether Lewis cares about me, and let the hospital deal with him. He says I need to do what I can do to work on where he will go when he is released. I have an appointment with the Dept of Veterans Affairs next Tuesday to determine what VA benefits he is eligible for, because that will help determine if there is a place he can go through the VA.

It is nice to have a personal connection with a Baha'i who lives right here, who really cares and has the ability to help.

 

[Truthseeker]

I have no doubt it will get better because I will be able to move on with my life and there are many choices I could make given I healthy and set financially for life. Being married to Lewis has held me back from living because I was constrained by this lifestyle that was linked with him and his needs.

But even if it will get better eventually I will be in grief and you know how I do grief...
A cat is a cat but a human being you were married to for 37 years is different.

Yes, it could be worse for a while.

 

[Truthseeker]

I understand that there is no contradiction on a purely logical basis, but I do not have to believe that forgiveness always benefits us, and I do not think it is necessary or prudent to forgive everyone, regardless of the situation. I do not care what the Abdu'l-Baha says. You can either accept that or you can believe I am a bad Baha'i, I don't care. It is a miracle that I am still a Baha'i at all, for reasons you already know about.

I've been arguing too much with you at this difficult time. Sorry.

I do not think there is a discrepancy but I still do not believe what Abdu'l-Baha wrote about forgiveness. Maybe part of that is because I cannot forgive easily, I don't know, but there are many more important spiritual qualities I need to focus on. Usually if I cannot forgive when I feel I have been wronged I put every effort into trying to find out if I was really wronged or not, before I forgive a person.

It's good you are aware of virtues you need to focus on.

On another note, one of the Baha'is in my community just called me and he is trying to help. He retired from a career as a medical social worker for the VA. He knows hospital systems and how they operate. He also has a background in psychology so he understands what is going on with Lewis, and he concurs that Lewis is not competent to make his own decisions because he is too childlike and that Lewis has a serious anxiety problem.

He recommended that I step back from Lewis, not get all emotional about whether Lewis cares about me, and let the hospital deal with him. He says I need to do what I can do to work on where he will go when he is released. I have an appointment with the Dept of Veterans Affairs next Tuesday to determine what VA benefits he is eligible for, because that will help determine if there is a place he can go through the VA.

It is nice to have a personal connection with a Baha'i who lives right here, who really cares and has the ability to help.

Yes, very good. I'm glad you have a local friend that can actually help and is reaching out to you.

 

[Trailblazer]

Yes, it could be worse for a while.

Or it could be worse forever.... Only God knows.

 

[Trailblazer]

I just want to make it completely clear that, this is obviously based on my very limited knowledge about your situation, so if something doesn't feel or seem right for your current situation, that is most likely why, so it is purely based on what you have told me earlier and what you write here, mixed with my own interpretation.

I think it might be ok for you to maybe get an objective point of view on it, because when you are experiencing something like this, things might not see or you might not notice things as clear as when not standing in the middle of it. So when I say that it might not be as bad as you think, I don't mean the general situation, that is obviously not good.

But since I don't know your husbands perspective and only yours and what you are writing. I think, you have to maybe take a step back and try to look at things, a bit differently, and maybe take the bull by the horns so to speak. Because to me, it sounds like you two haven't really talked with each other for a long time, and I mean "really" talked.

So if I were you, I would go see him and simply put it to him straight and ask him if he is interested in you coming by and visiting him or essentially having any further contact with you or if he would rather be left alone, making sure whether he have made up his mind about the situation etc. Said in another way, get some sort of closure or final conclusion.

You said that you don't have many people in your life, which is obviously not fun, but it is not something which can't be solved. And from how I understand it, your husband, despite you two might not have been getting along the best, he at least gave you someone. Which I could imagine is probably also why you feel down at the moment. But on the other side, again based on what you have told, maybe there weren't really a lot in the first place? If you care to be around other people, you want to be around people which you enjoy being around and makes you feel good etc. But it doesn't seem like this relationship have really offered that, but is more based on the fear of being alone, so you accept a lot of the bad things that comes with it.

Now I personally like being alone, I hate having people around me all the time, I don't like going on long vacations and I get bored of spending to much time around others fairly fast. Not everyone have it like that, but I know plenty of people that live alone, including people which have no children etc. and are very happy about it, because it gives freedom. I even know, yet one of them is dead now, people that were married, but didn't live together, so they had separate apartments, but whenever there were parties etc. they showed up as couple and did things together as you would expect married people to do and it worked well for them.

So in your case, since you have the Bahai community or it might not even have anything to do with them, what you could do, is maybe join a group to learn to cook, gardening, paint, writing, singing, gospel if that is a Bahai thing, something with cats, whatever you think could be fun and then meet new people through that. And if you are lucky you could make some new friends.
Alternatively, you could do charity work, maybe if there is something in the community that you don't like or you know could use some help, you could start an event to do something about it and maybe some will join you, maybe from the Bahai community or just some evil atheists and you can meet people like that. And lets be honest, there might very well be other people in similar situations which are also looking for someone to hang out with. So I wouldn't be so down about it, because there is a lot you can do fairly easy if you want to meet people and feel that is very important.

But to me, if I were you, I wouldn't spend so much time of what went wrong between you and your husband, that is what it is, and again it might sound easier than it is, but I would try to get some form of closure, you don't have to break all contact with him unless he say that this is what he want. But I don't think you will win anything from trying to keep on to something, which might not even have been there in the first place, which might only give you a "false" sense of it being there.

So it might be good for you, to sit down and just try to take a step back from everything and look at it from a wider objective perspective, and try to put your personal feelings to the side for a moment and look at what options are there and simply realize that there are certain things you just have to accept for what they are, whether that is your husband's choice, that your brother might not be very nice, I mean you are not forced to keep contact with him or put anything into it. Because again, I don't think you would have a hard time finding some people to hang out with, that are looking for the same thing as you and as you said you are already used to taking care of everything, so at least that doesn't change.

Thanks @Nimos. You have lots of good ideas and suggestions. I will surely respond to your post but probably not until tomorrow when I have time to give it the proper response it deserves.

 

[Fool]

I would rather not divulge what I am going through or what I fear is up ahead, I just want to talk about detachment and suffering. One reason I do not want to go into any details is because what people say very often only makes me feel worse and I cannot afford to feel any worse since I am walking a tightrope right now. I kindly ask you not to offer any religious platitudes about how suffering is good for us, as that is the very last thing I need. If you cannot help yourself, please do not reply to this thread.

Some believers claim that detachment is the way to reduce or eliminate suffering, that is a Buddhist as well as a Baha’i belief, but what does one do when they cannot detach from a situation since it involves another person who depends upon them, a person that they care about? I am trying to be detached from the situation but when does it become selfish to detach from the other person who is the source of my suffering, just to reduce my own suffering?

I feel like I want to die whenever I stop to think so I am staying as busy as possible so I won’t have time to think If I did not believe in God and the afterlife, I would probably kill myself before having to go through what is up ahead. This will probably be the most difficult test I have even endured in my life. If only I could be selfish and only care about myself this would not be that difficult, but I have never been one to think about my personal happiness.

When there is nobody left to turn to and no other hope, God is all I have. God is working overtime listening to my constant prayers just so I can stay afloat. I am asking God for guidance and assistance getting through this. God knows I would like to see a miracle but I am trying to believe that whatever happens is God’s will and I am 'trying' to accept that.

they were torn asunder. That feeling of being shredded, ripped to pieces, crushed. The mental anguish. The abuse by one. The neglect by another. Disassociate, Disassociate, DISASSOCIATE. God help me.

three great lies guarded in silence. Everywhere danger.
lies if uttered out loud could destroy the tenuous reality and shallow support system. Is this something really better than the alternative of nothing?

The miracle isn't that someone loved him because there seemed little of that in times of rage and sexual abuse. but the miracle was the power he had to change someone else's life for the better with love. So they pulled. the thread slowly and watched as even more of the lie, the life unraveled. took off the mask. Stopped playing the great actor.

He went looking for god. And found love as the power of self.

I used music to pull me back up from the bottomless pit. I have played in a brood of vipers. Cue the music and dance on pinheads..

Orgia - Wikipedia

Blue Kachina dancing
Nataraja dancing
Cernunnos dancing

Love dances

 

[Hockeycowboy]

I would rather not divulge what I am going through or what I fear is up ahead, I just want to talk about detachment and suffering. One reason I do not want to go into any details is because what people say very often only makes me feel worse and I cannot afford to feel any worse since I am walking a tightrope right now. I kindly ask you not to offer any religious platitudes about how suffering is good for us, as that is the very last thing I need. If you cannot help yourself, please do not reply to this thread.

Some believers claim that detachment is the way to reduce or eliminate suffering, that is a Buddhist as well as a Baha’i belief, but what does one do when they cannot detach from a situation since it involves another person who depends upon them, a person that they care about? I am trying to be detached from the situation but when does it become selfish to detach from the other person who is the source of my suffering, just to reduce my own suffering?

I feel like I want to die whenever I stop to think so I am staying as busy as possible so I won’t have time to think If I did not believe in God and the afterlife, I would probably kill myself before having to go through what is up ahead. This will probably be the most difficult test I have even endured in my life. If only I could be selfish and only care about myself this would not be that difficult, but I have never been one to think about my personal happiness.

When there is nobody left to turn to and no other hope, God is all I have. God is working overtime listening to my constant prayers just so I can stay afloat. I am asking God for guidance and assistance getting through this. God knows I would like to see a miracle but I am trying to believe that whatever happens is God’s will and I am 'trying' to accept that.

I certainly hope that you will come through it ok. I’m glad to hear you are praying about it.

i hope the following verses bring you some comfort; it was written by King David….
Psalm 34:15,18, New World Translation
15 “The eyes of Jehovah are on the righteous, And his ears listen to their cry for help.…. 18 Jehovah is close to the brokenhearted; He saves those who are crushed in spirit.”

 

[Trailblazer]

I certainly hope that you will come through it ok. I’m glad to hear you are praying about it.

It will come through as God wills, whether it is ok for me or not.
I pray nonstop whenever I am out walking for 2 hours each day.

 

[Trailblazer]

I used music to pull me back up from the bottomless pit.

Thanks, I am in the pit and that is really nice music.

 

[Trailblazer]

@Truthseeker

I just realized something and since you have been into psychology lately....
Probably one reason it hurts so much that Lewis is rejecting me is because I was rejected by both my parents...
It is the nightmare of my childhood all over again, when nobody loved me.

 

[rational experiences]

Detachment happens naturally.

As we are natural and being abused isn't natural.

Therefore it's an effect of causes.

It's nice to know humans studying our consciousness claiming it's a God resource thesis won't know it all.

And guess what human brother we've only been created by sperm ovary little microbial beginning's as each self. For a very long time.

Said your own mind. You however forgot to say humans already owned small microbial bodies.

 

[samtonga43]

Lewis is doing just fine. The doctor said so. I am the one who need comfort and through all the good people of this forum I an getting it.

I cannot be the only person here, reading this, who is appalled...

 

[Trailblazer]

I cannot be the only person here, reading this, who is appalled...

I did not see anyone else who was appalled so as usual you are the only one criticizing me on this thread, of ALL the people who have responded with love and compassion and understanding...

You have no idea what the context is unless you have read through the thread and saw what I said. You have no idea why I need comfort so you judge me out of hand.

You jumped to conclusions regarding what I meant by just fine.

Trailblazer said: ↑
Lewis is doing just fine. The doctor said so. I am the one who need comfort and through all the good people of this forum I an getting it.

Lewis was doing just fine at the moment I wrote that so I was just repeating what the doctor said, but you had to try to twist so you could say something bad about me. You just could not help yourself.

 

[samtonga43]

Lewis was doing just fine at the moment I wrote that so I was just repeating what the doctor said, but you had to try to twist so you could say something bad about me. You just could not help yourself.

I have read the context, Tb. I am still appalled.
My advice would be to listen to Tony.

 

[Fool]

Thanks, I am in the pit and that is really nice music.

I finally realized one day that it wasn't personally something wrong with me but something personally wrong with them. They would do this to another had there been someone there besides me. There was.

But I still cry for that kid sometimes and those who have to become adults so young. I guard him now. He's always very close by.