Why Does God Allow Suffering?

Comfort's in heaven and we are on the earth,
Where nothing lives but crosses, cares and grief. 

(Shakespeare, Richard II, Act 2)

How could there be a God if suffering is permitted? Why would any God allow it? This is the perennial question of seekers.

God allows suffering so that we may see through it.

If God did not permit suffering, then we would be stuck in an incomplete and hungry happiness defined by mere pleasure. So from time to time, the Almighty permits us to take on as much as we can bear. Precisely in that unbearable moment, we see through the pain, and our vision becomes truly vast. When we see through pain, we see That which is ever the same in both suffering and joy. That is Samadhi, which in Sanskrit means sameness of vision.

In the realm of the gods, where all is pleasure, Samadhi cannot become permanent. Gods must be reborn as human beings on earth to gain liberation. You may be one of them.

Gods must be crucified. Samadhi becomes permanent only in a world where suffering is possible, demanding a vision that grows so laser-like it makes our pain transparent. In the concentrated Now of suffering, see through your pain into the vastness of Being.

Have you not noticed? Those who have suffered carry a depth, an expansion in their eyes. When they look at you, you fall into it.