Read our Monthly Magazine



Current eMagazine
Click here

Join our E-Mail List
Sign Up Here
Magazine Archives
View the Archives

Well crap! I just had one of those small-but-important realizations. I was minding my own human business (i.e. daydreaming) when it came in from the ethers. Hold on to your seat as I share it with you:

Our old human passion had to leave because…… (drum roll)

The original definition of passion is “to suffer.”

Who the heck wants passion when all it means is more suffering? It’s like asking for more energy if the only thing energy brings into your life is more chaos and hardship. Who wants more of that?

After I got this small realization I looked up the origins of the word passion. It dates back to the 13th century Old Latin word “pati” which literally means suffering. We probably had at least a half dozen lifetimes where we used the word passion to refer to human suffering. It was reinforced by the Church with the whole Passion of the Christ thing, meaning the suffering and death of Yeshua. Really? Yeshua’s passion was to suffer and die? I highly doubt it, but the powers-that-were transmitted this message to the masses and suddenly in the 13th century passion was all about suffering.

One of the most challenging parts of awakening is the loss of passion. It was #11 in Tobias’ 12 Signs of Spiritual Awakening list, right before The Desire to Go Home. That means it’s pretty important. Nearly every Shaumbra I’ve talked to has said they lost their regular human-based passion shortly after their awakening. Most Shaumbra are waiting for some type – any type – of passion to return, and still feel incomplete without it.

I remember my loss of passion. I was busy (nay, obsessed) with a start-up aviation company, as well as running my marketing consulting company in Dallas, Texas. Linda and I had a circle of yuppie-ish friends we spent a lot of time with. I had a lot of passion, trying to juggle the businesses and our social life. I would learn later that these were not really passions but rather a series of neurotic activities that kept me from looking within.

Then one day the big Keisaku Stick of Awakening smacked me upside the head. It didn’t get my attention right away so it smacked me a few more times. Ouch! Welcome to awakening. I finally got it and spent the next three months in a bliss-ninny state of being. I was seeing colors and angels, hearing voices and floating on clouds. Linda was pretty worried but nothing seemed to bother me in this surreal world.

I got one foot back on the ground about 90 days later, and suddenly realized I didn’t care about anything. The passion was gone. Within a short period so were many of our friends, probably because I tried to talk to them about what I was experiencing. The passion for my profession was gone as well. It was almost disdainful to think about meeting with clients, managing a staff and trying to raise money for the start-up company. I found myself anxious, unmotivated and uninspired. The passion was gone. The warrior had put down his sword. The starry-eyed kid with big dreams and aspirations was now nothing more than a gray ghost. I tried to re-kindle the passion numerous times but each time it felt like a car with a dead battery. It’s not so much the feeling of turning the key and listening to the click-click-click sound as it is the empty knowingness that it’s really not going to start. All hopes are dashed even though you keep turning the key in anticipation of something happening.

The Loss of Passion was cold and heartless. It felt like not being able to breathe deeply… just short, shallow breaths. I was certain that I had done something wrong. How could I possibly have a spiritual awakening and then lose my passion? I would have figured just the opposite: Have an awakening and then everything gets bigger, better and easier. (I can hear the Ascended Masters roaring with laughter at my human perception.)

The Loss of Passion was the last thing I had expected. I would spend the next 20 years failing to find it again.

Someday I’m going to be like the Master in Adamus’ stories of the Master and Student. I’ll be sitting at the pavilion in Hawaii on a sunny morning, sipping a latte and eating a chocolate croissant, when the student approaches:

Student: Master G, I lost my passion.

Me: Yes Grasshopper*, and you’ll never find it again.

Student: Whaaaa? How can I live without passion??

Me: Human passion was killing you. It was all based on suffering. The word passion actually means “to suffer.”

Student: But what’s there to live for if there’s no passion? I’m suffering without my passion!

Me: Live for experience, Grasshopper, Live. For. Experience.

Student: What are you talking about, you old fart?! And why do you keep calling me Grasshopper? I’m going to find another Master, someone who teaches me how to get back my passion.

On second thought I don’t want to be like the Master in Adamus’ story. Some humans just don’t want to listen. I’ll just sit at the pavilion in Hawaii with my latte and croissant, but without the student part. Why make life more difficult than it has to be?

Now back to passion. It sounds so romantic and righteous. Passion is like the fire in your belly and the light in your heart. It’s the reason to get up in the morning and keep chipping away all day, even when you know you’re not really satisfied. But it can also be a huge distraction. Major makyo. At least mine was for me. My passion drowned out the still small voice within, the one that was calling me to awaken years before I actually did. Now I realize that passion was the frosting on my ego cake. Oh, so sweet! It added lots of sugar to an otherwise bland cake underneath. For me anyway, passion was actually about “drive” and goals rather than something truly meaningful.

When that small enlightenment came to me the other day – the one about passion leaving because it was really about suffering – I asked the obvious question that any other normal self-doubting Shaumbra would ask: If there’s no passion, then what is there? The answer came to me the moment I asked the question: It’s all about experience, Grasshopper. It’s. All. About. Experience.

Seems to me that the old passion was like a cup of coffee in the morning to stimulate an otherwise tired body and mind. I used passion to get through the day. I called it passion but it was just an interesting way of getting me through another day in the zoo. When the passion was stripped away, I had to take a look at the bleak reality of being in a cage in the zoo. I wanted a shot of passion to make my cage more tolerable.

Isn’t it interesting that the Latin origins of the word passion mean “to suffer”? Going forward in 2019 I’m going to replace that old, seductive word passion with the word experience. I’m done waiting for passion to return (and perhaps relieved that it won’t), and I’m ready to just experience me. After all, that’s what the human facet is all about. Experience, without judgment. Experience just for the sake of experience. Experience that will all be distilled into wisdom in the moment, as the human and Master walk side by side, with no need for passion.

Happy New Year, from the Grasshopper in me to the Grasshopper in you!



* Click here for an explanation about the Grasshopper reference

4 comments on "To Passion is to Suffer"

  • ROSANA VEIGA GUIMARAES on February 19, 2019 3:10 PM said:
    Obrigada ! Me identifiquei com sua historia. era como se eu tivesse lendo como eu me sinto! que alivio !!! Eu estou pronta para apenas experimentar. Simplesmente viver, existir, e a cada momento destilando d tudo em Sabedoria!
  • Susan Young on January 17, 2019 9:26 PM said:
    Wow! I don't know HOW you manage to find time to write articles with your busy life, but I am so glad you do! Specifics aside, it was like reading something I had written myself. And I agree, tee hee, let the student alone; enjoy your chocolate croissant!
  • Daniel Fairclough on January 13, 2019 3:30 AM said:
    I love this!.... I lost my old passion a few years ago, it was a huge relief, my old passion was an obsession that was tearing me apart.... The moment I released my passion I instantly realized how unbalanced it was! 😆
  • Daisy on January 11, 2019 8:37 AM said:
    It is like living to love

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published.
More connections for you
  • Shaumbra Magazine
    March 2024
  • Shaumbra Magazine
    February 2024
  • Shaumbra Magazine
    January 2024
  • Shaumbra Magazine
    December 2023