It is a training. Suffering is a training – because there is no possibility of becoming mature without suffering. It is like fire: to be pure, gold has to pass through it. If the gold asks “Why?”, it will remain impure, worthless. Only by passing through fire will all that is not gold be burned and only the purest gold remain. That’s what liberation is all about: a maturity, a growth so ultimate that only the purity, only the innocence remains – all that was useless has been burned.

There is no other way to realize it. There cannot be any other way to realize it. If you want to know what satiety is, you will have to know hunger. If you want to avoid hunger, you will avoid satiety also. If you want to know what deep quenching is, you will have to know thirst, deep thirst. If you say “I don’t want to be thirsty,” then you will miss that beautiful moment of deep quenching of the thirst. If you want to know what light is, you will have to pass through a dark night; the dark night prepares you to realize what light is. If you want to know what life is, you will have to pass through death. Death creates the sensitivity in you to know life. They are not opposites; they are complementary.

There is nothing which is opposite in the world; everything is complementary. “This” world exists so that you can know “that” world; “this” exists to know “that.” The material exists to know the spiritual; hell exists to come to heaven – this is the purpose. If you want to avoid one, you avoid both because they are two aspects of the same thing. Once you understand this, there is no suffering: you know this is a training, a discipline. Discipline is hard. It has to be, because only then will real maturity come out of it.

Yoga says this world exists as a training school, a learning school – don’t avoid it and don’t try to escape from it. Rather live it.