About five weeks ago I had a tooth pulled. I have been through some excruciatingly painful physical experiences in my 65 years. To date, however, nothing matches this last experience.
The last painful experience that can be set alongside the pulling of the tooth occurred some 20 years ago when I injured my spine (incorrectly) helping lift a (very heavy and awkward) treadmill. The pain I experienced then was so severe it crippled me for some time. I could not walk without extreme pain in my lower back and legs.
Fast-forward to five weeks ago. The tooth was dead. One ‘branch’ of the root was slightly curled under the root of the tooth next to it. When the dentist showed me the x-ray, I had no idea what I was in for when sitting in the oral surgeon’s chair. He yanked hard (picture a western movie where the barber uses pliers to pull a tooth ‘back in the day’). My head was pulled this way and that – it was all my neck could do to ensure my head stayed attached (yes, a bit of humor, but with eyes closed I had a deep conversation with Christ to keep me steady in order for the surgeon could continue).
The yanking was not enough. Out came the drill. The tooth had to be drilled into pieces in order to be extracted.
Anyone who has had a tooth pulled knows the immediate aftermath: Novocain still working, a hole in your jaw stuffed with gauze and still bleeding. Fair enough. Then the Novocain wore off.
I am one of those people who long ago separated myself from allopathic medicine and, therefore, refused narcotic pain relief – only Motrin, which I also use very sparingly.
What I understood would be only a few days for the pain to subside took the better part of 8 full days.
I have a rather high tolerance for pain, except when the pain is ‘above the shoulders’. Those 8 days were challenging to say the least.
Well, if you understand even a bit of the human body, no part is separate, disconnected or immune from any other part. If trauma is experienced in one area, it will inevitably have an effect somewhere else. This has happened to me in a very painful manner: That weakness in my back suffered 20 years earlier (which has always affected the piriformis muscle on my right side and has resulted in the challenge of keeping my sacrum in place and the occasional flare up of sciatica) has come back with a vengeance.
As of this writing it has now been 30 solid days of excruciating nerve pain shooting down my right leg and rendering me (at times) unable to walk ( I figured out crutches help a lot here).
How are we to understand such suffering? I can quote Rudolf Steiner (and others) on the (hidden) meaning, reasons and causes behind our sufferings in life, but I’d rather give an answer based on my experience and knowledge.
Nothing we do in life is absent of the spiritual realms, the angelic hierarchies and our own (spiritual) development (our evolution toward coming into the fulness of what it means to be a human being).
At about eight years old my grandfather said something to me in the form of a question that sparked the philosopher in me. I remember the day, the minutes, quite clearly. He simply said, “Ken, today is the first day of the rest of your life. What are you going to do with it?”
We were sitting in the garage on the steps up into the house. He was called into the house. I climbed the tree in the front yard and contemplated what he had said for sometime.
In later years, on the threshold of adulthood, I toyed with various religious expressions. One of those experiments was delving into Cabala which presented an experience where I encountered a “being” that scared the hell out of me.
As the years trailed behind me, especially after several incidents and times when I was quite obviously being called, I ran from anything spiritual. When at one point I was driving a truck for a job, I ‘happened’ upon a sermon on the radio that changed everything.
I eventually began going to (Protestant) church. Over time that proved to be a farce and unfulfilling. I began studying the Desert Fathers and was eventually led (via a coworker of my wife) to the Eastern Orthodox Church. I still hold to my baptism in the Orthodox Church and my personal Praxis, but learned over time there too the dogma was devoid of true Love.
More years went by. I was studying the subject of Atlantis. In a used bookstore I came upon a (very) small volume written by Rudolf Steiner on the subject. I have, since that time, never looked back. To the core I am an Anthroposophist.
Since becoming an Anthroposophist, I have desired with increasing depth to overcome my ‘lower self’. The process is referred to as ‘initiation’. After practicing various methodologies to such a goal, I felt myself failing.
But all of my effort over the years – primarily centered in changing and maturing desire – has not gone unnoticed by the Spiritual realms.
My wife pointed out to me something about myself you would think would be obvious to me: I have suffered my entire life in one form or another. From birth I was sickly, expected not to live long. I was ill ‘forever’ with ear infections, other ear-nose-and-throat illnesses, including pneumonia which “killed” the “tip” of one of my lungs (actually not long after that conversation with my grandfather). I have already mentioned some of the more evident things later on which also includes chronic sinusitis (I can no longer fly on planes because of this – one time almost dying as the plane descended onto the runway after a business trip to Boston) and an unseemly rash on my left leg that persisted for over a year (that was a challenge in overcoming the urge to scratch an insatiable itch – we have photos lol).
Side note: It is not common for me to share such things about myself, my life and I certainly wish no pity or sympathy. I have been incredibly blessed my entire life. And I have no doubt that so have you if you would only stop and so some honest and deep introspection.
In this last week of continued suffering with my recurred back issue, I have, for the first time in all these years, sensed a deep change in my soul. I have been shown that this suffering was a gift to get me (finally) to the place where the inner-change I have for so long sought has become fructified. This is not a surface “God help me and I promise to …” – I can’t count (nor at this point would I want to) how many promises to God and myself I have broken. This is a real, fundamental shift in my being. I now understand that without this pain and all the personal, daily limitations it brings with it, I very well would probably have continued the inner lie to myself and never really changed. Karmically speaking, this would have been disastrous for my (true) being.
If you are suffering – in any way, shape or form – please know that it has a higher purpose for your (eternal) life that you may not be able to ascertain at the moment. It is not always wise to demand to know or demand proof in such matters, for they are matters of the Spirit and cannot be proved or understood by material means. And it is not blind faith to which I refer. This is knowledge (“Know Thyself”). It is knowledge that any person in our time (the fifth post-Atlantean epoch) can know because it exists already within.
One last important note. I could not survive all of this without the Love and devotion of my wife. I have no (real) friends and no “support system” except her. It is my prayer for you that you have in your life someone who loves you in the same way. If not, know this – regardless, you are loved and your suffering is not in vain.
Addition:
Rising Upward Through Suffering
The following is by Rudolf Steiner about one of the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount – Matthew 5, verse 4
“Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.” One of the major riddles that we face in this world is that of suffering. To the ancient Greeks, this free, cheerful people, who were as dependent for their existence on sensual enjoyment as the air they breathed, Silenus provided the following answer to the question ‘what would be the best for the people’: “miserable people … the very best is for you would be completely unreachable: not to have been born, not to be, to be nothing. However, the second best for you – is soon to die.” Aesop though, says that one can draw lessons from suffering. And Job comes through all the suffering imposed on him to the conclusion: Suffering purifies, it brings advancement. – Why do we leave the theatre with a feeling of fulfilment after attending a tragedy? The hero overcomes suffering. Between advancing a step further and living through tragedy there is a link. […]
The soul needs to form an organ so that it can bear suffering. Like the eye was formed by light, the ear by sound, suffering and pain likewise form spiritual organs. […]
The human being progresses to a higher stage through suffering.
Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 97 – The Christian Mystery – Stuttgart, 19 January 1907