“Suffering may come to them (children) out of the blue or it may come as the consequence of their own mistakes. 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 man on the cross is an archetypal image. He is every man and every woman. As long as you resist suffering, it is a slow process because the resistance creates more ego to burn up. When you accept suffering, however, there is an acceleration of that process which is brought about by the fact that you suffer consciously… In the midst of conscious suffering, there is already the transmutation. The fire of suffering becomes the light of consciousness.” Eckhart Tolle, “A New Earth,” p. 101-102.
