The nature of pain, saturn, ego-death, and awakening.

Pain is simply Saturn = limitation, restriction, imposition, restraint, chains, imprisonment, boundedness, bondage, torture, to be hostaged, to tolerate/bear/endure/withstand.

Which causes: [frustration, angst, suffering, anger, despair, depression/futility/hopelessness, helplessness].

The context of all powerlessness/helplessness is mostly the debility/inability/impossibility to maintain-advance-exalt the past-ego.

The impossibility of meeting ones desires from one's state-station in time, and the feeling of despair of being unable to do so even in the future.

When the movement of time starts to kill and end the past-ego.
The negation of the survival instinct and the search for pleasure.

Desire is obviously of the ego, So death of the ego will hit al of these areas totally.

The ego is a creation of the other, it is created-maintained-destroyed by the other only.

Time creates, maintains, and kills the ego - through others as props for that enactment.

Both the birth process and death process belong to governance/domain of time.

As long as your "ego's desire pattern" is in line with "existence's desire patterns" at that time/place,

It will live that much longer,

Until existence itself changes enough,

Then you'd anyway go through ego death.

Conscious creation of identity/identification/tuning/alignment/merger with the larger cycle-forces is the best option to mitigate pain and suffering.

But since this is conscious, this is done after one grounds themselves into the Pragnya of Shunya first.

In 99% of the cases, the ego is unconsciously formed in a span of time-places, so no matter what the internalization is, it is going to be met with ego-death/transformation when the time-season changes.

A summer ego is going to meet the winter season and get greatly transformed into the winter ego.

If one is asleep, one is identified with the summer ego, gets tortured and struggles through the transformation to the winter ego, and now will once again struggle when the next transformation happens.

All transformation is an opportunity to wake up and see the truth directly.

That is when the maya illusion thins itself allowing you to see through it to the Shunya that is the actual real. The veil is thinner and full of openings at that time.

It is like how when the sky goes dark you get the opportunity to see the whole larger universe, but once the sun's light reengages the sky veil, everything is obscured again.

The only way to not go through ego-death is identification with the changeless.

Any ego identity means you are sleeping-dreaming not awake to the actual truth.

So every transformation will feel like death and come with all of that real pain/terror.

The difference that knowing of the real truth makes is like the difference between knowing something is a movie vs. believing it is actually real. 

That is the sheer level of difference and relief.

All the stuff still happens, but it is seen from a totally different place.

Anything that will change, if identified with, it is going to change someday, and that time you'd go through loss and ego death.

I think this is what sg was referring to as riding larger cycles?

Because it is taking refuge and building over a larger cycle,

So it is continuously powered-supported by larger existence for longer and therefore will last longer.

Such folk will feel like they are immortal because of the long cycle they are tuned to, but all cycles end.

It is only a matter of time.

Death is for all that CAN die.

All that CAN die WILL die eventually.

It is only a matter of time.

Whether for an aeon or something very short in span.

Even all the devatas die, all the entities in higher planes too.

Identification with immediate changes, causes very quick nulling creating loss grief pain again and again in quick succession.

GAIN-LOSS-GAIN-LOSS? ----or----- gaIN-GAIN-GAin-loSS-LOSS-LOss

That is riding over quick cycles ----vs---- Riding over a larger cycle.

But whether a smaller cycle or a larger cycle, in the end all is not, all is unreal, all is the play of the same Shunya.

The shorter cycles create more intensity of gain-loss, and in a way are easier to use for awakening and seeing through.

The larger cycles would be more imperceptible, and more difficult to use for awakening, will put you into a trance of sleep (taking everything for granted) much easier.