The greater the path, the more difficult, painful, and severe the law, because with power comes responsibility.
This is why those who take the direct path precisely suffer from incurable, painful, and terminal illnesses towards the end of initiation, since they chose to pay everything expediently.
Remorse, comprehension, and repentance are necessary, yet they cannot remove the inevitable results of mistaken actions. The law is the law.
Such karma is very painful and everyone must face it eventually. However, bodhisattvas are radical: they do it in one life because they want to help and heal a multitude of humanities right now. Therefore the tests, development, and ordeals are way more rigorous than those who approach it in small increments.
For thirty years I sought God. But when I looked carefully I found that in reality God was the seeker and I the sought. -Bayazid al-Bastami