A Journey Within: The Causes of Human Suffering
- Peace Through Yoga Foundation’s
- Mar 1
- 15 min read
“Hurt people hurt people”, is a quote that keeps coming up for me over the past few weeks bringing me back to my social work years. This quote is often attributed to various sources, but it doesn’t have a specific origin. It reflects a common understanding in psychology that people who are suffering or have been hurt themselves may unintentionally cause harm to others. The phrase has been used widely in discussions about empathy, healing, and relationships.
As I remembered this quote traveling to India, I pondered on the idea that a lot of suffering in life seems to boil down to feelings and emotions. How we emotionally feel most of the time create our reality and destiny.
Dr. David R. Hawkins, a psychiatrist and researcher, is known for his “Map of Consciousness,” a framework that uses a logarithmic scale (1-1000) to map the spectrum of human consciousness, from destructive to enlightened states, based on his research using kinesiology to measure emotion. The logarithmic scale maps the spectrum of human consciousness, from destructive states like shame, guilt, and fear (lower levels) to enlightened states like love, peace, and enlightenment (higher levels).
Dr. Hawkins used kinesiology, a method of muscle testing, to conduct his research, calibrating over 250,000 times to define the range of values and emotions that correspond to different levels of consciousness. The Map of Consciousness identifies various levels of consciousness, each with specific characteristics, emotional tones, and views of life and God.
In his book, “Power vs. Force” the Map of Consciousness explores the concepts of power and force, arguing that higher levels of consciousness are characterized by power, while lower levels are characterized by force.
Dr. Hawkins’ work emphasizes the importance of transcending the ego and moving towards higher levels of consciousness to experience enlightenment and alleviate suffering.
The chart below is The Map of Consciousness which can be used as a tool for self-reflection and personal growth, helping individuals identify their current level of consciousness and work towards higher states of awareness. It is crucial that we do the work towards higher states of awareness. A piece of common wisdom passed down through various teachings that Dr. Hawkins shares in this diagram is, “Thoughts become words. Words become actions. Actions become habits. Habits become character.” It is an important concept to understand. But how does one do the work towards higher states of awareness to achieve enlightenment?
After growing up Christian and studying, practicing and teaching yoga over the past 20 years, I still grapple with nearly all the obstacles to enlightenment and happiness as outlined in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. These obstacles are called Kleshas, a Sanskrit term meaning mental afflictions that cause suffering and keep people trapped in the cycle of rebirth (samsara).
There are 5 Kleshas presented:
Avidya (Ignorance) - Misunderstanding the nature of reality. (Some call this sin).
Asmita (Egoism) - Identifying too strongly with the self or ego.
Raga (Attachment) - Clinging to pleasure and desires.
Dvesha (Aversion) - Rejecting or fearing pain and discomfort.
Abhinivesha (Fear of Death) - Deep-seated fear of the unknown or clinging to life.
Overcoming Kleshas through meditation, self-awareness, and detachment is a key part of spiritual practice in Yoga and Buddhism.
Humans have contemplated ways of avoiding suffering since the beginning of time. I remind myself almost daily that pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.
The last words my dad uttered to me while on his death bed was, “Stay positive.” He knew how I struggled with depression. I knew he was right but now I feel I can truly understand the significance and importance of those words given our political and cultural situation in the United States.
My father was a deep thinker who feared and loved God with all his heart. He led his life by example and was not caught up in the pursuit of gaining wealth or earthly treasures. He was into learning about, loving and serving God and humanity. He was a man of few words but when he spoke people listened.
My dad came to me in a dream just before I left for India, as well as my recently passed friend, Betsy, as if to support and comfort me. In my dream, I was afraid of the ocean because it came up to the bottom of the apartment my dad and I were in. Like all dreams, it was as if my dad and Betsy never died, and we just picked up where we left off.
In real life, I was afraid of flying over the ocean for 15 hours. In my dream, my dad and Betsy distracted me from my fear by helping me to prepare a big meal for guests that were due to arrive that evening.
When I looked outside at the ocean’s encroachment on our apartment again, it was back to normal with the current being farther away.
Our perception is not clear. Even though the 2015 study was debunked that said humans have the same amount of concentration as a goldfish, it was remarkable that so many people said, “Well, of course!” and believed the study as fact! Fear and worry strangle the heart and cloud the mind. Yogis practice breathwork, or pranayama to still the “vrttis”, or modifications, fluctuations, or movements of the mind. It is a key concept in Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, where it refers to the various mental activities that shape perception and consciousness. In yoga philosophy, the goal is to still these vrttis through practices like meditation and self-discipline to attain a state of pure awareness. (Yoga citta vrtti nirodhah- Yoga is stilling the fluctuations of the mind).
There are five main types of vrttis according to Patanjali:
Pramana (Right knowledge) - Direct perception, inference, and testimony.
Viparyaya (Misconception) - Wrong understanding or illusion.
Vikalpa (Imagination) - Conceptualization without real basis.
Nidra (Sleep) - A state of mental inactivity but still a modification.
Smrti (Memory) - Retention of past experiences.
When we smooth the ripples in the lake of mind, we see our own true reflection of mind more clearly. Through the measurement of brainwaves using encephalographs, modern science has found evidence that yogic breathing techniques do in fact quiet the brain’s activity. There are over 100 different yogic breathing exercises that have different effects on our physiology and they work!
Vendanta yoga is a philosophy that was created thousands of years ago. Its main premise is that everything is connected. God is not sitting on a throne somewhere far away in or outside of the universe but within us and around us! As outlined in the Bible, God is, indeed, omnipresent! Laws and theories of modern-day physics and metaphysics mirror these concepts.
Consider the String Theory or the discovery of the Higgs Boson, or God Particle, discovered by CERN in 2012. It is a fundamental particle that explains why other particles have mass. CERN is the European Organization for Nuclear Research, one of the world’s largest and most respected centers for scientific research. It is located near Geneva, Switzerland, and is best known for operating the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s most powerful particle accelerator. Its fundamental purpose is researching in particle physics, studying antimatter, dark matter, and high-energy physics, and exploring the basic constituents of matter and the forces that govern them. Other technological contributions include inventing the World Wide Web in 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee and making advancements in medical imaging, computing, and data processing.
Despite all our advancements in technology, it boggles my mind that we still do not know how to stop our own suffering. Why do we still hurt each other and ourselves? Hurt people hurt people.
We are thinking and feeling creatures wanting to protect ourselves and our tribe. We are listening to the echoes of our primordial ancestors. Self-preservation is instinctual. We not only have to deal with our own past hurts or trauma, but according to epigenetics, we share the same damage to our DNA that stress caused our ancestors going back 7 generations.
We are feeling, listening to and giving space for anger, fear, dread, worry and anxiety when we feel our safety net is failing. These emotions are necessary for our survival, yes. But, if we sit with them for too long, it makes us sick physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
Feelings of hopelessness, helplessness and despondency is in the heart of sadness. Sometimes we hurt ourselves by feeling contempt and even hatred for ourselves without even knowing that we are doing it. Even if we did know why, we would be hard-pressed to ever forgive and show compassion toward ourselves.
How easy it is to feel the sting of anger toward another when they post or write about something different from what we believe to be true. We lash out in anger without thinking. We tear down our brothers and sisters out of fear, ignorance, anger and lack of discipline. We subconsciously see ourselves in others and when others do not reflect our personal beliefs, it can feel like an existential crisis.
This is my 5th pilgrimage India, and its people always inspire me. They are strong out of necessity. They are brave out of necessity. They are loving despite their circumstances. In my experiences over the years, it seems that although many people in India are poor compared to the standards in the U.S., they exuberate great wealth spiritually. They love deeply and care for one another. Although we are considered one of the world’s wealthiest nations, we seem to be starving spiritually with dark clouds of fear, anxiety and greed looming over us daily in our media outlets and our social media that we use as sounding boards.
Amidst treacherous conditions spawns the seeds of hope through love and kindness. I believe adversity spawns humility. On a macro-level, the greatest thing about humility is that it fosters unity, progress, and wisdom. Humility allows for stronger relationships with others, giving way to a willingness to adapt to change, and as a nation, focus on serving the well-being of all its people rather than seeking dominance. We must subdue the ego.
This reminds me of the story Jesus shared about the poor widow who tithed everything she had. It came to pennies. The Pharisees, the ‘holiest of the holy’ in the church, thought since they were wealthy, they had better favor with God.
Jesus reminded them that it is the intention within one’s heart, not the gold coin that counts. It is, indeed, easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Many Biblical scholars believe the eye of the needle to be hyperbole, with Jesus referring to an actual gate in Jerusalem where the camel had to kneel to pass through.
We create our own hell here on earth with worry, fear, anger, and paranoia. These are emotions that are raking in billions of dollars through entertainment news, music and movies. Emotions are embedded or encoded into the finest fabric or mainframe of our culture. It flows within us, through us, to others and back again verifying and reinforcing the validity of our emotions we send out whether it be in person without saying a word, or electronically.
Whether these emotions are negative or low vibrational frequencies such as anger, fear and worry, or positive emotions, higher vibrational frequencies such as love, peace and joy, being fed and holding onto negative emotions is an epidemic that is spreading across the globe, not just in the United States.
If you do not already practice meditation, please consider developing the type of practice that works for you. It can be counterintuitive and even repulsive at first if you are holding onto pain. Maybe you are not ready to let go and that is okay! I love the saying that prayer is talking to God, and meditation is listening to God.
Find the stillness in between the thoughts and breath. Repeat a mantra of positivity. Inhale while mentally or physically saying a word that speaks to you such as, “love”, and exhale out another word that speaks to you such as, “within”. Or “Christ”, on the inhale, and “within”, on the exhale. One does not have to sit in a cross-legged position for hours in a cave to attain enlightenment. Meditating while doing mindless chores, running or walking can also be just as effective.
Religious background does not matter. Religion is man made. It is not required to experience a personal and deep spiritual relationship with our creator. These types of practices will draw you closer to God whether you attend church, temple, mosque or not. You will feel more aligned with what is happening inside matching how you interpret and express your feelings outside of yourself. It is difficult to speak our own truth when we have so much information from the outside we have to sift through first.
A few years ago, I read that the amount of information we ingest in a week is equivalent to the amount our great grandparents ingested in a lifetime. Being trained in Sociology, I am not sure about the statistical significance of this study, but I can believe it.
Historically, turmoil has always been present in the world in different forms. When comparing the number of crimes against humanity while considering how fewer the population was during the Roman Empire times, the world is a lot less violent compared to that era.
Globally, despite what is fed to us in the news, humanity, experiences more peace and prosperity than we ever have in our known modern history. It is a matter of perspective. When we stay glued to the media outlets, we ingest injustices and crimes that we would never otherwise have known about. They have always been there, but they are front and center every day making humanities’ condition seem hopeless. And with artificial intelligence, it has become even harder to decipher what is even true.
We need to detox our mind and leave room for God. Technology is a blessing, but we need to take responsibility of its disrupting the natural flow of joy, peace, health, and vitality in our lives. There is a rhythm to nature, and we are part of nature! We need to trust ourselves again. Getting outside and meeting friends in person is imperative. Healing our physical gut biome is a great way to get reconnected with ourselves and natural rhythms and literally, your gut feelings about your surroundings. Our emotions directly affect our digestion through our enteric nervous system. Our enteric nervous system is partially controlled by you guessed it, our mind and emotions.
Controlling our emotions begins with controlling the distractions of the mind. Some might ask what the difference is between controlling our emotions and suppressing them. This is a question I have asked myself many times. In ancient yogic philosophy, it is said that we are not our mind. We are not our emotions. We just are! We are what they call the observer, or the Atman. You can think of this as your higher self, or the soul. The ancients call this the Witness Consciousness. Learning detachment is a great tool to control your mind and emotions instead of your wild thoughts and emotions controlling you.
The Bhagavad Gita is a story included in the epic tale of the Maha Bharata which depicts Arjuna conversing with Krishna about getting up and fighting instead of sitting in his chariot slumped over, not wanting to go into battle. He does not want to fight his own cousins, the Kauravas, for stealing his father’s kingdom, in the Kurukshetra war.
It is an allegory depicting his evil side of the family representing his habits taking over his kingdom or his life. Habits control what type of emotions we feel and emotions control habits. We struggle with mental, physical and emotional habits. Mental habits of berating ourselves and others for example, emotional habits such as ignoring certain situations because of fear and anxiety and habits on the physical level such as over-eating, gambling, overuse of drugs or alcohol to help deal with mental and emotional suffering. And the list goes on.
In the end, Arjuna decides to get up and fight, taking the reigns of his chariot, the reins representing his mind and leading his horses, or the 5 senses, into a victorious battle overcoming the thieves of his kingdom, his habits.
The middle way of thinking brings balance and harmony to the mind. In the Bible, Paul wrote to the Ephesians that, “Everything is permissible but not everything is beneficial. Everything is permissible but not everything is constructive.” I Corinthians 10:23 This suggests that while we have free will, we should consider our actions. It is what the eastern philosophy deems as Karma. What goes around, comes around. We must stand up and take responsibility for our own peace. No one can do it for us. Yes, Jesus can give us peace, but we must take heed to what we feed the mind. Indigestion of the mind is as much of a disease as indigestion in the digestive system.
Mahatma Gandhi’s saying, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” has been my mantra the past few months and it has helped me to ward off anxiety, anger and sadness about the future of our nation.
Being of service to others creates a happy heart. After a horrific battle between the Hindus and Muslims, a man came to Gandhi asking how he could possibly forgive the Muslims for killing his son. A valid question indeed! Gandhi’s response was as wise as King Solomon’s in the Bible. Ghandi told the man to adopt a Muslim child whose father had been killed by a Hindu to learn how to forgive and love each other. Being angry for injustices is natural but staying angry toward those that seemingly brought on the injustices is like swallowing poison ourselves hoping to kill off those that caused the harm to begin with.
I grew up in a loving family attending an evangelical church, Assembly of God. While it wasn’t perfect, I chose to take away only the good from my experiences, and there were many. Our Sunday school teachers would encourage us children to memorize verses in the Bible and the verse that has stuck with me for almost 5 decades is Philippians 4:8 – “Whatsoever things are true, honest, just and pure; whatsoever things are lovely, think on these things.” And this comes back around to my father’s sage advice to stay positive. This is much easier said than done but that is the practice. The practice is not for everyone…yet. There is validity to what has been called ‘toxic positivity’ where one ignores their negative emotions. That is not a part of the practice. The practice is to fully accept the negative emotions and let them move through you instead of staying stuck in you.
Working low vibrational or negative emotions out of the subconscious and the physical body through yogic deep stretching and breathing can help us do just this somatically! Maybe in the not too far future, we will experience enough strife as a nation to humble ourselves to go in and take responsibility for our own peace. It can be easy to ignore those negative emotions through distractions with the internet and tv or the consumption of low vibrational foods, alcohol or drugs. Changing our habits can be hard.
Hurt people hurt people. It can be hard to remember that if someone treats us poorly, it is usually not about us but about the perception they have in this world and the struggles they are going through. A huge part of the practice is reminding ourselves not to take it personally when someone mistreats us. Giving attention to those negative emotions that automatically arise to protect our ego takes away our power and can make us miserable.
The term, namaste, is Sanskrit meaning, “I bow to you.”, and is used as a daily greeting or salutation in India. It is also interpreted as, “The divine in me honors the divine in you.” reminding us of the Vendanta philosophical concept that we are all connected.
There is a Secret One inside us;
the planets and all the galaxies
pass through his hands like beads.
This is a string of beads one should look at with luminous eyes.
(Tarns.by Robert Bly0
Some may have just a little spark left of the divine in them and it is imperative that we seek that little spark and acknowledge it no matter how hard it may be to find. Sometimes viewing them as a baby or child is the only way that helps me to do this. They will feel that you see or feel the good in them and step up to your expectations without even knowing it and without you having to say a word.
God is in all of us, not just in some of us. We would not be alive without the life-giving pure energy of the love of God.
It is so important for us to leave space for God’s love within. Not only for the sake of loving our neighbors as ourselves but for our own peace.
We cannot begin to do this for others if we cannot love and be kind to ourselves. If we are sick, hungry and in our own mental prisons of ignorance, fear or anger, how can we serve others?
I have come across many clients and students over the years that feel guilty about treating themselves to a massage, taking a day off or just taking a little indulgent pleasure in life, whatever that may be.
It is imperative that we love ourselves and remember who we are. If not for ourselves, we must take good care of ourselves on every level to be able to care for others. They need us and we need them. It is holy work to care for ourselves.
Hurt people hurt people. Let us stop the cycle of hurt by going in and doing the work of making necessary changes in our own lives. Healing our own wounds instead of taking our emotions out onto others. Michelle Obama had it right when she said that “When they go low, we go high.” Speaking our truth when and where needed and praying and blessing those that persecute us will save us from our own inner destruction. For God is our strength and our shield. Whom shall we be afraid? (Psalms 28:7)
Om, Santi, Santi, Santi
“Om, Peace, Peace, Peace.”
Om is a sacred sound and symbol in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and other spiritual traditions. It is where the term, “Amen” comes from. It is considered the most powerful primal sound, representing the essence of the universe.
Om is believed to be the sound from which the universe was created. “In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.” (John 1:1) It signifies the eternal vibration of the universe and is considered the fundamental sound of existence. It represents the origin and ultimate reality of all things.
May you find peace in knowing there is hope. May you find peace knowing that you are far beyond powerful. You are a child of God who has the power to change the world beginning with the world right within you!
Loca Samasta Sukinom Bhavantu, Upanishads
“May all beings in all worlds be happy and free.”
Namaste!
Christine Yovanovich, B.A., E-RYT 500, YTT Dir., Y.A.C.E.P., R.M.
Peace Through Yoga Retreat Leader
REFERENCES
Power vs. Force, the Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior, David R. Hawkins, Hay House, 1994.
Second Sight: An Intuitive Psychiatrist Yells Her Extraordinary Story and Shows You How to Tap Your Own Inner Wisdom. Judith Orloff, M.D. Three Rivers Press. 1996.
Comments