Raphael, Llorona, the Christian mindset and an old Hindi song- It all makes sense

So I was trying to understand the uncontrollable emotional outburst that I had when I was in Panama on Raphael's account. After I came back, I was watching "Frida" and the song "Llorona" sung by Chavela Vargas had a profound impact on me. The song is based on this popular Latin American folk story of a woman who kills her own kids out of her love for another man who had no love for her kids. The woman ends up killing herself after commiting this senseless act and becomes a ghost, doomed for eternity. On full moon nights she is said to come searching for her kids, wailing her heart out in her grief and guilt. In a perverse and ironic twist to the story, the ghost of the woman attempts to cover her loss by kidnapping and killing other little children. The last bit is perhaps an adult addition to scare little children into obedience...

But when I heard Chavela Vargas singing this powerful, mournful song in her deep rasping, yet pathos-filled voice, "llorona", Jesus dying for the sins of all mankind and my own breakdown suddenly made sense.

I kept crying as if I was crying for someone else. As if I was crying for the griefs of a hundred other people. And I reached the point where it became physically too exhausting to continue crying, but could do nothing to stop it. It was as if a dam had burst, but the broken walls were made of living tissues that seethed and burnt from the pain. The tears washed over my soul, like a flash flood that carries away all that it finds on the path. And then I wished that someone would step in and cry for me and give me a rest. I recalled an old Hindi song from a movie called "Milan" in which the hero prays to be allowed to give his own sleep to his beloved so that he can stay awake and watch over her while she slept peacefully ("Ram kare aisa ho jayen; meri nindiya, tohe mil jayen; mein jaagun , tu so jayen...). I then understood why people may want a character like Jesus. Someone in biblical times must have either undergone unbearable sorrow or may have done a terrible crime, like the lady in "Llorona" and could get no relief from the pain or the guilt. In the desperate search for a means to cope with the situation, I can see a person or a group of people gradually constructing this mythical figure - call it Jesus, Krishna, whatever - who could cry for them, wash away all sense of guilt and suffering for all mankind and for all eternity, and provide succour for parched souls. Jesus or Krishna was the answer to our deepest yearning to be rid of pain and suffering and understand why we were thus suffering.

This is so ironic. Suffering and pain cannot be rid by constructing another myth. The Buddha was wise enough to realize that. The only way is to eschew attachement to worldly desires. I would probably not have suffered so much if I did not have the desire for close friendships and kindness in the first place. But the weeping aspens of the world would rather suffer the pain wrought by love and passion, be wounded again and again so that they may feel the pain and know that they are still alive, than enjoy the sterile, cynical bliss of Nirvana.