How is suffering imaginary?

[Natasha Tori Maru]

@Someone here You might like this from John Wheeler - an excerpt from one of his writings.

I find you are sensing the futility of spirituality and life. How it all fits. What might be its purpose and application.

It came up in my feed randomly and I thought of you:

I do not know if you are heavily into non-duality - but this applies to seekers in general.

[Ajay0]

Quote

 

Human beings suffer their own memory and imagination; that is, they suffer that which does not exist. ~ Sadhguru

"Fear means to suffer what may or may not happen in the future. It is a consequence of mixing up your memory, your present experience, and your imagination." ~ Sadhguru

 

Psychological suffering arises due to reminiscing of painful and traumatic memories in the past, and experiencing them in the present moment instead of being conscious and aware.

Similarly imagining of painful events or situations in the future similarly evokes psychological pain at present. 

The right and natural state of a person is to be conscious and aware in the present moment, instead of unconsciously living in the past memories or future imagination, which is an unnatural state. Due to its state of unnaturalness, it induces psychological pain just as a state of unease in the physical body registers as physiological pain so as to seek alleviation of it.

I would like to give a personal example with respect to the above. I enjoy watching the colorful sunset in the beach and often visit the beach for the same. After watching the sunset mindfully, I often felt good and happy, and leave the beach in a pleasant mood.

One day however, while waiting for the sunset, I unconsciously reminisced about some painful past event memories, leading to an unconscious, incessant thinking and emoting process. In the process, I completely missed the outside sunset while living in the drama of my inner world.

As  a result, when the sunset ended, I found that I had not actually observed it and enjoyed it. This time, when I left the beach I did so in an unpleasant mood feeling stale and miserable.

However this incident was an excellent empirical experience for myself in terms of understanding the difference between existential reality and psychological reality.

Sadhguru had elaborated on the mechanics of human suffering in this article...

https://isha.sadhguru.org/en/wisdom/article/the-mechanics-of-human-suffering

 

Edited September 24 by Ajay0

[UnbornTao]

On 9/23/2025 at 11:24 PM, Someone here said:

I understand what ralston means even though I haven't read the book. He says your life can be full of stress and proplems but you can dissociate and realize you don't suffer emotionally .and I agree you can transcend emotional suffering to a great degree . But physical? Impossible.  If you are hungry you are suffering. And you need to eat or you will die from hunger and rot in hell .

Have you ever caught yourself dramatizing your pain, adding more to it?

I imagine there have been times in your life when you experienced pain yet didn't suffer it - maybe when playing a sport, or with other physical activities.

It's not at all about dissociating from or suppressing your experience but about recognizing that you're at the source of most of it. Is the stress actually caused by "life," as you seemed to suggest, or do you have an active role in it? How does a problem exist except in relationship to you?

Fasting is a practice that some people take up. The fact that it is intentional tends to change their relationship to hunger. Maybe the physical sensations themselves don't have to be suffered.

There's a guided meditation somewhere in there: be a rabbit. Have the experience of a rabbit.

Once you can make that real in whatever way works for you, contrast it with your usual experience. What doesn't the rabbit do?

Edited September 25 by UnbornTao