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Sikh Research Institute
Sikh Research Institute Canada
Copyright Sikh Research Institute 2026. All Rights Reserved.
In these human lives, pain and suffering come in many forms—physical, psychological, mental, and spiritual. We hope that our pains are few. We seek comfort and peace and contentment. But in these moments of ease, when life is comfortable and pains are minimal, when our senses are satisfied and satiated, we lose something.
We lose sight of our relationship with IkOankar (the One). Our seeking quietens. Our longing fades. Our awareness dims. In comfort, we drift from practicing remembrance and devotion of the One. We stop making efforts toward connection.
In this context, Guru Nanak Sahib says:
Suffering has become medicine and comfort the disease; when there is comfort, then remembrance is not there.
Let us linger on this for a moment.
How does suffering become our medicine? In our suffering, we reach for something. We seek the One. We long for connection. Our pain becomes the cure because it pushes us to reflect—it lifts us out of our indulgence and numbness and into introspection. When we are in desperation or need, we feel small and helpless and we look to feel the Grace of the One.
You are the all-capable Creator, I am not. When I do something on my own, it does not happen.
I adore You, pervading in creation! Your end cannot be known.
In this pain, we lovingly surrender. We begin to experience the Vastness of the One who is the Doer and the Cause. We begin to see ourselves as part of something infinitely larger—held within the embrace of the boundless Presence of the One. We place all our trust in the One.
In this shift, we begin to feel the One in all spaces and interspaces. We begin to experience the One within our very hearts. Illusions of separation begin to fall away, and awareness dawns. Through this awareness, a deeper longing emerges—a longing that transcends the duality of pain and comfort, a longing that is not limited to times of need, but a longing that happens in a continuous state of devotion.
May we experience the transformation of our pain into deep longing, remembrance, and awareness.
May we sit with our suffering long enough to push us toward something fruitful.
May it awaken connection within.
May it guide us back to remembrance, to surrender, to awe.
May the Wisdom-Guru guide us!
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