Question: Why did God need this suffering? Why did God make it so that He would suffer in man's suffering?

Sri Chinmoy: As I said, the worst suffering is that in our human mind. You know if you pinch me, I shall suffer. If you give me a deliberate blow, I shall suffer. Yet suffering is painful because we take it as painful. Something may be painful to us, but in God’s Eye it is not like that; it is an experience. And that experience is like a stepping-stone.

There is day and there is night. We can say that night is darkness and it is full of undivine forces, whereas day is bright and divine. But again, we could think of night as rest and peace. If we enter into the very depth of night, we get peace, sublime peace. There we take rest and energise ourselves for the day, when we will enter into the battlefield of life.

We have to know that we are making progress; we are proceeding towards the Light. Right now let us say that there is a tunnel of suffering before us. But at the end of the tunnel there is light. Suffering is not the beginning and suffering is not the end. Light and Delight were the beginning and they will be the end.

In the process of evolution, the forces of suffering are making us stronger. Sooner or later we shall say “No” to suffering. We shall refuse to see the face of suffering; we shall see only the face of Light and Delight. This will be our determination. But if you ask, “Why should suffering exist at all?” then I wish to say that you call it suffering, but God does not call it suffering. He takes it as an experience, and when we become one with His Will, we also will take it as an experience. Right now we are not one with His Will, so suffering is suffering and joy is joy. We are separated from God by our limited mind. But if we remain in the wave of the cosmic Will, then we shall see that everything is an experience helping us to realise the Absolute.