From Pig Iron to Pure Heart: How Suffering Refines the Soul
The meditation theme in last Friday’s meeting was peculiar and unexpected. It was about suffering. It culminated into a cry of “Enough suffering!” Not just suffering in a hospital bed, but suffering in general, through bad choices or through seemingly weird and unrelated circumstances.
Suffering is the single experience that all humans share regardless of their life circumstances. We all suffer in our own ways. We suffer silently or publicly, for issues that have to do with our selves or others, motivated by unconditional love or selfish desires. And we do so relentlessly, being slapped, smacked, flattened and banged around. Often less physically but more emotionally. We cry out for mercy if the pain becomes unbearable.
This year, 2025, feels like an ordeal for many. I can’t remember any other year in my life that has tormented me more than this year. One thing is certain. The more we feel while we evolve spiritually, the heavier the burden feels, because we can perceive a broader spectrum of feelings with finer nuances than ever before.
But why is it so commonplace to suffer in our lives? Why can we not learn our life lessons gracefully, instead through “shock-and-awe” experiences?
As I mentioned in my first book, "Emotions are the fires in the furnaces of our Hearts in which we figuratively burn while living out our realities. Emotions make experiences gripping. We remember through memories, but we comprehend life’s lessons through the emotions we associate with those memories." You might drop your shoulders and despair, thinking that this is how this school of Earth works. Well, it does and it doesn't. Bear with me, please.
Not so long ago, school students had to endure physical pain administered by the principal with a wooden paddle or stand in the corner or write long repetitive phrases to reflect on their unacceptable behaviour.
Pain and suffering are commonplace on Earth from the day we are born to the day we die. Life shows no mercy, except at the precise moment of death, when Spirit deems our suffering complete and our learning goals fulfilled. During life we must show mercy to ourselves and others. Life most certainly won't, because life is teaching us mercilessly through “shock-and-awe” experiences, until we choose to learn gracefully.
I know, your burning question is why? Why do we have to suffer? Why do we feel pain relentlessly, mercilessly through life?
Who do you think wrote the script for the movie of our life, in which our character is the main protagonist? Come on, you know this. Admit it to yourself and you will feel better. You can pause for a moment to think. Who do you think wrote the script for your life? Well, you did. Not your limited character. Your true Self did. Let that sink in for a bit and let's explore the ramifications. Your true Self wants to expose the weaknesses in your character, which, in its imperfection is perfectly casted for the movie of your life, to allow you to learn those weaknesses. Let me rephrase. Your limited self, your character in this game of life is imperfect, yet it is crafted in a way to let these weaknesses of yours to bubble to the surface of your perception. The trouble that we run into, not knowing our weaknesses and imperfections is a perfect way to expose them. We observe our thoughts and actions. And then we feel pain. We suffer. Depending on the intensity of the experience we feel despair, we break down and hit rock-bottom.
You might ask, what now? Indeed, what now? Let's take a break and examine the modern steelmaking process. Yes, that's correct. We will examine how steel is manufactured. Please bear with me, and you will understand the parallels.
To make steel out of ordinary iron ore, we need a form of coal, which is called coke, limestone, known in chemistry as calcium carbonate and depending on what type of steel we want to produce, a selection of other elements in smaller quantities. We need a Basic Oxygen Furnace or an Electric Arc Furnace that will serve as a container for the extreme heat and the elements included in the whole process. The first step of the steelmaking process with a Basic Oxygen Furnace is to heat the iron in the absence of oxygen and the presence of coke. Coke is used to create the high temperatures needed, and because it acts as a reducing agent to remove oxygen from the iron ore. Natural gas is increasingly used to replace coke, because it is environmentally friendlier. The result is pure, molten iron. Once we have pig iron, which is what molten iron is called in this process, we can refine it by blowing oxygen into it. The presence of limestone reacts with the carbon in pig iron and forms carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide gases, reducing the high carbon content of pig iron, which made the pig iron brittle and hard to form. Now, it has a consistency that's more like steel: stronger than iron, but malleable. We can also see impurities floating on its surface in the form of slag, which is the result of oxygen being introduced into pig iron, which oxidizes all impurities. This is why limestone is needed. It binds the impurities and forms slag, which can be easily removed. After that, we can refine pig iron further before casting it in various, desired shapes and further shaping and finishing it as steel. This is how Basic Oxygen Steelmaking in a Basic Oxygen Furnace is performed.
The Electric Arc Furnace method is different. Scrap metal is loaded in the Electric Arc Furnace, which is lined with heat-resistant materials and has electrodes to create the electric arc for melting the metal. This method is preferred for recycling old metal and reduces the need for iron ore.
After the high-powered arcs between the electrodes melt the scrap steel, oxygen is introduced to oxidize unwanted elements, just like with the Basic Oxygen Steelmaking.
We can then refine the molten steel by adding nickel, chromium or manganese to produce steel with different properties. A secondary refining process is often applied to enhance the quality of the steel.
Are you still with me? I hope that wasn't too boring, because I am about to draw parallels and show how we learn either through “shock-and-awe” experiences or gracefully through meditation and much less resistance.
The Heart can be likened to a furnace used in the Basic Oxygen Steelmaking process that’s processing life's circumstances that forge and evolve us. The pig iron, which is a metaphor for our limited self, our character in this life, is agitated with emotion, because of the burning coke, which is the awareness, perception and realization of the intrinsic lessons which we are about to learn. The coke, as the essence of the lesson, is becoming part of us and is further reduced and condensed to its purest essence. The limestone can be likened to the subtle, yet strong influence from our inner voice, which binds and purges the slag. The slag can be perceived to be the sum of attachments of the ego floating on the surface of the self, while the raw steel, which can be a metaphor for our limited self, is becoming stronger through purification and refinement.
In contrast to the above steelmaking process, the method of the Electric Arc Furnace can be more appropriately imagined as being the method of choice for spiritual seekers, using meditation to learn. In this metaphor, the Heart of the spiritual seeker is the Electric Arc Furnace, using the mind’s reason and the Heart’s compassion as electrodes. During the conscious application of inner work through free will, which is the archetypal manifestation of divine will in third density consciousness and represented by the electric arc, is sustaining the alchemical process of consciousness evolution. The scrap steel is molten and consolidated in the Heart and can be likened to the bits and pieces of condensed experiences we have gathered throughout life.
The above metaphors are hopefully illustrating the differences between the two steelmaking methods. The first one represents a human character who has no significant experiences, consisting metaphorically of iron ore and many impurities. However, the second method is using less iron ore and mostly scrap metal, that contains no impurities, is already condensed and has been recognized by the character as valuable. This process is much more energy-efficient than the first one, a reflection of the lesser degree of resistance we exhibit towards inner work. However, the most important difference is that we consciously choose to use the divine will we all have to perform the steelmaking process, converting our Heart into an Electric Arc Furnace, when it was a mere Basic Oxygen Furnace earlier. We can now understand, how the learning experience takes place, and how the purification and refinement of the self is accomplished. Both methods of self-refinement are valid, yet there is much less resistance with the second one.
Most of us have not yet grasped, that pain and suffering are just a side effect of the process of learning. They are the catalyst in the learning process for those of us who are not yet guided by their true Self. By taking charge of the evolutionary process of consciousness expansion, we significantly reduce the mental and emotional burden, resulting from the impact of life’s “shock-and-awe” experiences and gradually eliminate them. Putting an end to relentless pain and suffering that torment most of us in life is a great personal achievement. Deciding to take the learning process into our own hands and choosing consciously to accept its lessons will enable us to learn gracefully. Furthermore, we can weave the threads of previous lessons within meditation into wisdom that will help us to overcome any similar potential crisis events later in life as we grow older and more mature, by merely applying the lessons that we learned through our own Heart’s persistence and guidance of our true Self. In time these lessons will blend into wisdom that will provide a blueprint on how to deal in the moment, with the unknown.
Once we decide that we have experienced enough pain and suffering when we hit rock bottom during a life crisis, and consciously choose to put an end to it, then we have not only instantly learned the crucial lesson that’s inherent in any traumatizing event, but we also reclaim our own power to navigate our own life, guided by our true Self. We now go with the flow, seeking positive meaning and lessons in events that would have traumatized us earlier. Now we ride the unknown, instead of being at the mercy of life’s uncontrollable forces. This is the immense power that’s contained in the paradigm of initial decision and subsequent choice. Deciding that this lifestyle or that habit is actually harming us and consciously choosing to change it, will flip a switch inside of us and grok the lesson instantly, mobilizing the free will that’s present within all of us.
Pain and suffering serve their purpose, by forcing us to learn gracefully without being prodded by life’s uncontrollable forces, guided by our true Self. It all ends when we take charge of our lives.