The Role of Pain in Transformation

It may sound strange for a homeschooling blog to write about the role of pain in transformation. However, one of our students brought this question up recently in our Teen Empowerment Class. It is, therefore, relevant to our students as well as their parents. We ought therefore to inquire into our relationship with this troublesome part of life and see what wisdom we can bring to it.

Rudolf Steiner spoke extensively about the role of pain in transformation. In The Origin of Suffering he said, “Out of pain consciousness is born…Suffering appears…as the root of a climbing upwards, of a higher development…Consciousness within matter is thus born out of suffering, out of pain.”¹ Suffering, or contraction, beings us to ourselves. A student of mine was recently doing something dumb which I told her not to do. When she fell and hurt herself (luckily not badly), she learned her lesson. The pain brought her back to her true self in that moment. Such experiences often propel us to ask the deeper questions in life. Socrates is purported to have said, “By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.”

Our Teen Empowerment Class is currently choosing our next book to study, and they are mainly interested in dystopian novels. Most of these center around a common theme: societies striving to eliminate all pain and suffering to create utopias. Except, those utopias inevitably become dystopias because they have to eliminate all that makes us essentially human to create them. Utopia is not possible in the physical world. Nor is it not the goal of physical life (sorry, materialists). We can only experience utopia inwardly-spiritually. The physical world is a realm of division and duality. We are here to learn how to love, and that comes through compassion. Pain is necessary for that.

The Role of Pain In Our Own Biographies

If we as parents look back at our lives, we can no doubt discern the role of pain in the transformation of ourselves. Major challenges like illnesses or accidents have made us face things we couldn’t avoid. An all-too-common story is a health crisis that wakes someone up to what really matters to them. More commonly, we experience smaller crises like making a parenting faux pas or losing a client or job. All of these things hurt, but they cause us to evolve if we let them. Take a moment to think back upon your own biography and the challenges that have hammered you into becoming who you are now.

Just as necessary as pain is in our becoming human, it can yet become a kind of addiction and worldview. Many Buddhists, for example, claim that “Life is suffering.” I have seen people who, in recognizing the necessity of legitimate pain to grow, have made it into a path. They seek pain. These individuals seem to live and breathe it, and in so doing, I see them creating more. Why would anybody want to create more pain?

Should We Seek Pain?

In Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment, Steiner balances the above statements by saying, “An unhealthy asceticism… leads not to higher knowledge but to a weakening of life.”² Thus, just as it is right to question a society that strives to engineer all pain and challenge out of life, it is equally important to focus on what we want, not what we don’t. PR Sarkar, the great Indian saint, teaches, “You are what you think. Whatever you think, that you become.”³ Just because pain may be necessary to learn, does that mean we should go seeking it or deliberately create more? Few people intentionally create more pain, but many, many unconsciously do.

In his article on the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths⁴, PR Sarkar criticizes the Buddha for focusing too much on suffering. Sarkar essentially says the more we focus on suffering, the more it expands, but suffering is not the goal of life. The goal of life is expansion into limitless peace. Put more simply, it is to become spiritually free.

What is the Medicine for the Role of Pain in Transformation?

Having therefore acknowledged the legitimate role of pain in transformation, we must ask, “What is the healthiest approach to it?” We need this question for ourselves and, by extension, our children. I am not here to preach, so please take or leave what I say. Draw your own conclusions, and shape your own family values and messages according to what you, not I, think.

That being said, I’d like to advocate for a victory model of life that arises out of what Carol Dweck calls “Growth Mindset.” This is a path that accepts suffering when it comes and strives to embrace it, but also doesn’t seek it. Pain may come as a necessary gate to pass through, but pain isn’t the goal. The goal is to experience and create more joy, love, and peace for ourselves and others. The victory path keeps its gaze fixed firmly on what it wants, not what it doesn’t. It is a via positiva, not a via negativa.

So, when a student asks me about the role of pain in transformation, I’m likely to say something like this. You wish to climb the hill of the good, beautiful, and true. That is your goal, and that is what you should use all your free moments of consciousness to focus on. However, on that path, you will encounter challenges and hurdles, struggles and pains. These do not block the path, they are the path. They are angels in disguise, here to help you on your way. Do not lament them, and do not push them away. Rather, learn what they have to teach you.

A Message from Rumi

Translated by Coleman Barks

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.⁵

How We Can Help

Enkindle Academy offers prerecorded and live lessons for students in grades 5-9. We teach all academic subjects plus fine arts, creative writing and language arts, and empowerment groups for teens.

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References

1. Steiner, R. (1906, November 8). The origin of suffering (GA 55). Rudolf Steiner Archive. https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA055/English/SBC1980/19061108p01.html
2. Steiner, R. (1904/1947). Knowledge of the higher worlds and its attainment. Anthroposophic Press.
3. Sarkar, P. R. (1987). Subhāṣita Saḿgraha (Vol. 1). Ananda Marga Publications.
4. AccOT, C. K. P. D. (n.d.). Sarkar and the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths. Prout Research Institute. https://prsinstitute.org/downloads/related/spiritual-sciences/SarkarandtheBuddha%27sFourNobleTruths.pdf
5. Rūmī, J. (2004). The guest house (C. Barks, Trans.). In Rumi: Selected poems. Penguin Books.
   Scottish Poetry Library. https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/guest-house/