Do physical sufferings/disabilities serve any useful purpose in Life???

Question

Why couldn't we just join this world with an expiry date, serve our term/sentence and quietly get lifted up to wherever we came from? Are sufferings absolutely necessary for our spiritual growth?

Inviting views from Philosophers, Spiritualists, Believers, Non-believers and Others...Please!

Answer 1

I have wondered many times on this....

You see, my husband has a disabled aunt. Because of polio at her childhood.  She is married, wealthy, one could say she is lucky in her life. Yet, she is always nagging about being disabled and her character has been so badly twisted... she sometimes becomes mean.  I sympathize and I don't count on her bad behaviour but every time she becomes rude and ungrateful to us who are serving her or to her Life that gave her a good husband and money to have a comfortable life, I just wonder....  If she was not disabled, would she have been a kinder person??  Has her disability offered bad service to her Life?

On the other hand, I have a neighbour who after a car accident in his 20's, is on a wheel chair.  He is now in his 40

s and he often tells me that this wheel chair is his University (his own expression).  Because being seated there and not able to  move around as all of us are, gave him time to philosophise, to search for answers to deep questions about life, to be more tolerant to people's inadequacies.  He is really a wise, almost spiritual man.  And he says, all this is because of his disability that gave him the "luxury to free time" (his own expression).

So, two different stories of disabled persons.  I believe it is in their character, in their disposition in general....  One has to decide, will their soul make the best out of what has been given (good or bad), turning the difficulty into a useful lesson,  making them philosophers and kind and emotionally so strong and sensitive , or they will hold onto it as an alibi to cause their own suffering?

Answer 2

I think suffering to some extent keeps many people humble.

Answer 3

I belive that this is are heaven..Also are h**l so when we die we will have inner peace with ourselfs through all the pain and torment we suffered!,If you had an expiry date what would be the point in life..there wouldnt be a point! Live for today and not for tomorow,Because no one knows what it holds...And thats the most excitting thing about it!:D

Answer 4

Absolutely!

I have read a book on personal transformation who was blind and deaf. "The blind are cut off  from things and the deaf are cut off from people" as Helen Keller said.

Most people think it's worse to be blind than deaf. But how would they know unless one had experienced it.  Someone had wrote a short letter - on deafness. It's also about losing his precious hearing, how he fought back, found meaning in his suffering, accepted fat, turned negatives to positives, grew spiritually. and even learned to love life as never before.

To this person, deafness gave him many precious gift. He developed an acute intuition. Forced to become by stander, he learned powerful skills of observation. Through suffering, loneliness, and despair, he grew as a human being.

His disability and physical sufferings had been useful to him and gave a brighter purpose in life. He found compassion on a large scale. Conquering the challenge of deafness, he traveled a long journey of his soul. He released anger and stressed. He learned to love himself, to open his heart, and to surrender tot he will of the universe.

Indeed  he found peace of mind and empowerment.

Interesting question!

Answer 5

Yes, to grow in virtue, when you accept them in peace and offer them to God. And you put them in the hands of God. He knows better than anybody what you need, what is good for you, and for how long. When someone gets sick, for example, some get well sooner than others, some get cured faster than others, God knows why....... Even calling the best doctors! Some won`t get better....just accept it and trust in God.

Answer 6

There is no purpose in suffering or disabilities .. .. but these two can help us see Life in a different perspective .. .. that may or may not help us grow spiritually.

Answer 7

When you are unconditionally happy, you can be unconditionally loving, which means all the time. When you can be that, you can go on to your next step. Experience of pain tells you that you made a mistake. Peace indicates you are making right choices.

EDIT This in not to find fault in your father- in- law, but if you believe that suffering is part of your lot in life, then you are creating it, no matter what else you ever did to cause it, but I would certtainly look through my life for what I did to cause it. There are no victims..

Answer 8

I haven't noticed it serving any useful purpose in mine.

Answer 9

Note to Ms. Lizzy,

Ms. Param will have to say, if she likes, whether she's an *atheist*, but can you say clearly what it was about her question that made you react like that?

'Why is suffering necessary?'

Isn't belief implicit in this question? Suffering must serve some purpose or another, but the search for this meaning can try the soul, and sometimes the exasperated question comes out: 'I know it means something -of course! But what, what ?'

It's healthy young people with trouble-free digestions, with neither ailing parents nor wailing toddlers to take up their time, who are the least inclined to sit about pondering this very deep question, 'Why is suffering necessary?' There are a few twenty-somethings with Colgate-smiles and moderate student debt who claim -because I ask outright, very rudely- that they wouldn't need any kind of belief even if it turned out that there is something to it.

One truth is out there though, for all to see: those complacent smiles fade, and the care-free lilies wither in the sun. Doesn't any believer want to know why it must work like that? Doesn't he end up wondering, 'Would I be ready to go on to the next world, if I stayed twenty-seven right up to my 'expiry date'?'

So, I am answering you, Ms. Liz, instead of Ms. Param. Her question, 'What is the need for suffering?' is plainly right out of my depth, but I think I can answer yours, 'You're an atheist, aren't you?' without even knowing this lady.

Answer 10

As a  person with a disabilitiy I resent your implication that persons with disabilities serve no purpose. Dr. Mengele and others would probably agree with your viewpoint.

If one believes in reincarnation , people who choose to come to earth having disabilities are apparently in the higher order. Having a disability teaches me patience ( because I've had to deal with people like you who think disabled persons have  no place in the world or make no contributions). Think of what Doctor Stephen Hawking has contributed to quantum physics, what Albert Einstein , who was dyslexic has contributed to science. How Hellen Keller showed people that blind /deaf people could be educated graduate from university or go onto a life where she has inspired millions of blind /deaf and blind and visually impaired people.

I am a person with a disability, but my disability DOES NOTdefine who I am.  As people we have a choice to choose suffering or not choose suffering.

There are people with disabilities who bodies have helped medical students and researchers find answers to not only their own disability problems but cancer research, prosethetic research and on and on. If you talk with people who have been disabled or had cancer or other illnesses they'll tell you flat out having that experience was one of the best experiences they could have, it taught them  to involve other people in their lives . It taught them how to receive as well as give. It taught them not to be so obsessed with me , my , mine  and know that we have to work together, not just off in a little corner by ourselves , isolating ourselves from the world and feeling sorry for ourselves.

Unless you ENJOY suffering and there's a lot of people who , there are therapies and medications to ease one's suffering , but only if one is open to  not suffering anymore and is open to availing themselves to treatment and help.

You're an atheist aren't you? God knows when we're going to die or supposed to die , it's us humans who sometimes advance the date by our own foolish arrogant acts.

Answer 11

Suffering is essential in growth. It allows us to open ourselves to others in the world. No one can completely understand anothers suffering, but to have our own suffering allows us to open our hearts to others and if everyone did that instead of only taking care of their needs, we'd live in a much better world

Answer 12

Suffering is to make us not to take things for granted and to appreciate what we have.

Answer 13

We all suffer in different ways in our life.  Mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically.  I DO think it is  necessary.  I know we don't understand and we are in so much pain and anguish about it, but I believe it is vital for us to grow and push forward on the next stage in our life.  Only then can we look back and see why we had to go through that time and that pain.   I think it forces us to grow and develop in ways we never could imagine!

Thanks for reading!