From Pain to Bliss🔗

What is pain?

Let us explore the subject deeply.

Pain can be physical, mental or emotional. Physical pain is the least of our worries! It is in a way a basic necessity for the body. Just imagine if we could feel no pain, we might start styling our faces and limbs the way we style our hair today! We certainly can’t put it past today’s youngsters! But jokes aside, pain is the symbol of bodily wisdom. Pain is what makes us integrated human beings.

Contrary to what we believe, most of us are not ‘living’ with our entire body. We ‘live’ only in the upper parts, neglecting the lower ones. To understand me better, just try this: close your eyes and imagine yourself. Call out your name. Which part of your body do you recall? It would most definitely be your face and upper limbs, certainly not the lower body parts. This shows that we are not fully alive in every cell, in every limb of ours. Even in our minds, we make this distinction. The upper limbs are the masters, the lower limbs the servants. When you create this separation, unknowingly, your energy or life force is channeled only to those body parts that you focus on. Just touch your cheek. Doesn’t it feel sensitive, alive? Now touch your foot. Does it feel the same? Notice that you are not as alive in your foot as in your cheek. Why is that?

Though hard to believe, it is due to your lack of attention to that part.

Can the mind control pain?

On the emotional and mental level, pain is usually the result of some form of judgment. Pain is always, ALWAYS born of resistance to the present moment. Significantly, every time you experience pain, it leaves behind a residue which becomes lodged in the body. By and by, this accumulated pain creates a negative energy field around you, which we call the ‘pain body'. The 'pain body' is responsible for, and controls most of our pain patterns.

Research reveals that emotional imbalance can deeply disturb the physical body. For example, sexual repression can result in back pain, or the sense of shouldering too much responsibility can cause pain in the shoulder.

In a crowded bus, you may be packed in together with people of all kinds. Your being will not be touching them; your mind, your consciousness will not allow that. So your being will shrink deeper into yourself.

> In Calcutta there were two small ashrams whose presidents were not on > good terms with each other. > > One day a person of some authority arrived in one ashram and invited > the president to join him in visiting the other ashram. The president > was in distress. He could not refuse, but he didn't want to go either. > > Suddenly the president developed a high fever which prevented him > from leaving the place! > > I saw this with my own eyes. As soon as the other person left, the > temperature came back to normal again.

Haven't we all experienced 'Monday morning blues'? Even children display bodily symptoms of illness when forced to do what they don't want to do - like going to school! This kind of illness is caused simply by un-ease, caused due to the mind and body pulling you in opposite directions. This is what manifests itself as dis-ease.

The other day, a handsome young man belonging to an orthodox family was brought to our healing center.

His complaint was sudden blindness.

His parents started weeping and told me that the boy was in excellent health, and had turned blind just a week earlier.

All medical tests revealed perfect vision, but he couldn't see!

After scanning his energy, I asked to spend a few moments alone with him.

As soon as he was allowed to talk to me in private, the boy poured out his troubles to me.

He said that he was deeply in love with a girl, but had been forced by his parents to stop seeing her.

I immediately figured out the root cause of the problem.

I asked the boy to procure a photograph of the girl, and spend the next three days meditating upon it continuously.

His parents were taken aback at this unconventional solution, that too from a spiritual man!

But you will be amazed: the technique worked wonders. In 3 days, the boy regained his vision perfectly.

How did this happen?

When the boy was compelled not to see what he most wanted to see, his subconscious mind decided not to see anything at all. His blindness was deeply psychological. What tremendous power the mind has over the senses! The mind is everything.

| A small story | In the Bhagavata Purana, a grand epic of Hindi mythology, it is mentioned that Krishna and Radha took birth within a few moments of each other. Radha was a normal baby in every way except that she wouldn’t open her eyes. A few days later, Radha’s mother visited Krishna’s house to see the baby Krishna. She took her newborn daughter with her. The moment Radha was brought to Krishna’s presence, she opened her eyes and beheld Krishna before her! |

Later in life, when questioned by a friend, Radha remarked, ‘What else was there to see? It is for Krishna that I have taken birth. So I waited till I was taken to his presence to open my eyes.’

This may be only a tale, but it illustrates the tremendous power of the mind over the body.

Actually, pain is a requisition letter written by the body to the mind saying, ‘Please pay me some attention!’ Understand: your attention is your energy. Wherever you direct your attention, there your energy is also directed, and in that direction you witness growth.

You invite pain upon yourself.

Not many people would believe it if they are told that all their pains are those they have invited upon themselves, like honoured guests into their household. Yet this is true.

One man entered a restaurant and began ordering vast quantities of food.

Platefuls of steaming idlis¹, dosas² and jilebis³ made their way to his table. He ate with relish.

After a hearty meal, he signaled the waiter to stop bringing in the food.

The waiter duly returned with a little white slip.

‘What is this?’ asked he, looking at the bill innocently. ‘Why have you brought me this? I haven’t ordered anything like this!’

In much the same way, we too invite pain and disease upon ourselves with our immoderate habits and stressful lifestyles, and then forget all about it and complain later when disease takes its toll. And sometimes we do enjoy the disease too, though no one ever admits to that! Just as an organ asking for your attention develops a disease, you yourself fall ill in order to get the attention of others.

This is no wonder, for in the hectic pace of today's life, who has the time to pay attention to anyone else, unless they fall ill? Attention is such a basic need! Psychology proves that normally a man can stay alive without food for up to 90 days, but without the attention of others he will lose his sanity in just 14 days. Because attention is energy, it is a life-force.

Though we are unaware of it, the craving for attention is so great, that to gain it, we create our own low-energy pool, and gladly suffer everything from cold to cancer.

In a relationship, you often notice that both parties are begging for each other's attention, begging bowls outstretched. Do you think two beggars can have a positive and fulfilling relationship? To truly attain freedom from disease, stop begging for attention. This is a subtle, psychological begging, which happens without our complete awareness, and which is ultimately far more damaging than physical begging. Life teaches us a lot of things. Understanding them is our responsibility. But we live in a constant state of somnambulism, unaware of what we are inviting upon ourselves.

Let me illustrate with a small story:

> | A | An engineer working in a large firm would bring the same dish for lunch everyday. | > | --- | --- | > | small | Every day he would complain about how much he hated that particular dish, and his sympathetic friends would share their lunch with him. | > | story | Taking pity on the man's plight, his friends finally advised him, 'Why don't you ask your wife to cook something you like, for a change? How can she not be aware that you hate this dish?' | > | | 'What wife?' the man asked in surprise. 'I'm a bachelor. I cook my own lunch!' |

This may sound funny, but it is true. We live our lives in much the same way. Through our lack of awareness, we first invite pain upon ourselves, and then complain about it and resort to painkillers. And the truly shameful thing is, we don't even mind getting afflicted by the same disease again and again, because we don't identify ourselves as the root cause of the problem. We throw the responsibility on others, never on ourselves.

What is the cure for pain?

If pain is perceived as the absence of your attention, then the remedy must be your presence. There is a simple and beautiful self-healing meditation technique that channels your 'presence' into the diseased limb. You can try it the next time you experience pain. It is definitely a better option than painkillers, whose side-effects sometimes prove worse than the original complaint!

Let us now come to the meditation.

Let us say that you have limb pain.

Lie down in a dark room. Make a conscious effort to forget about your whole body, focusing only on the limb/spot which is causing you pain. As you experience your painful limb, deliberately drop the word 'pain' from your mind. Your mental chatter will continue to tell you that you feel pain. Switch it off. Feel deeply; experience with an open mind. Look into what is happening inside your mind. You will soon see that your mind was just exaggerating the pain. Put all your awareness on the center of the pain, and it will soon shrink to become just a tiny pinpoint of pain. Concentrate completely on this point, and you will discover in a sudden moment, that the pain has disappeared, and in its place is pleasure, bliss.

The root of pain and pleasure are the same; it is the same sensation with two names. If you have ever received a good massage from a friend or a professional, you will realise that the same massage would seem like sheer physical violence had you received it from a stranger!

If you try to understand the truth of your experience, it will be that 'pain' does not exist at all. Pain has only a negative existence. Like darkness, it is only an absence - the absence of awareness. As darkness disappears of its own accord when light is brought into a room, pain dissolves automatically when the energy of your awareness is focused upon it.

Any kind of pain can be transcended by this meditation. I invite you to experience it for yourself, to channel your pain into meditation and use it as a tool to enter your being. You will find that pain itself can become a door to ananda - bliss.

Pain can be a valuable lesson!

| | Two men, one a Gnani (a wise man), and the other an ordinary person, were traveling through a forest on a dark, moonless night. | A | Suddenly, a shaft of lightning flashed in the sky. small | The ordinary man began to tremble in fear. story | A storm! His mind was immediately given over to confusion. Should he continue to walk? Or should he find a safe place to stop till the storm was spent? | | He began wishing that he had never decided to undertake the journey. He cursed himself as foolish and unlucky. In other words, he fell headlong into suffering with just a few strokes of lightning! | | The gnani, on the other hand, simply used the moments of lightning flashes to take a better look at the road ahead and kept moving. | | He was assured that he was traveling in the right direction, thanked the lightning for its help, and moved onward.

Pain is just like this flash of lightning. You have no control over its existence. But whether you suffer from it, or learn from it, is entirely up to you. Then, you will realize that you are the cause of your own pain, and only you can be the solution.

When you observe your pain deeply, innocence opens up in you. For the first time, you become aware that you are not the body. No pain can touch the real 'you'. Once you realize that you are beyond pain, you transcend pain to become a dukkha ateeta (one who has gone beyond suffering). You experience the rare freedom that arises with non-attachment to the body which you will carry all your life. You transcend your mundane life and enter into a spiritual plane. You then exist in the world as an atman, an enlightened master. The whole material world disappears and another world arises – of incomparable beauty, innocence, joy and compassion.

As the Gita says:

(He who is ever established in the self, takes woe and joy alike, regards a clod of earth, a stone and a piece of gold equal in value, is possessed by wisdom, receives the pleasant and the unpleasant in the same spirit, and views censure and praise alike.)

With gnana and dhyana, awareness and practice, pain can become the magic portal to enter into Nithyananda - eternal bliss. My blessings are always with you.

A. There is one thing you need to understand first: enlightenment is NOT an escape from pain! On the contrary, it is born of a deep insight into the nature of pain, a profound and total understanding of ‘Why am I unhappy? What is it in me that is causing this pain?’

Just observing the nature and cause of pain with intense inner clarity, will cause pain to evaporate of its own accord - because it no longer has a reason to exist in you. And this realization brings with it, a state of absolute bliss, which is the state of enlightenment.

Enlightenment allows you to see, for the first time, that what you called happiness and contentment earlier were not true happiness and true contentment. Enlightenment showers upon you real bliss, real ecstasy. It gives you a taste of the real. But remember, none of this can happen till you have crossed the ‘pain barrier’ - a total understanding of the whole spectrum of pain. Enlightenment is certainly not an 'easy way out' of pain! Understand that.

And in a way, you need to be thankful for the pain and suffering you experience, because they are the catalysts that set you on your quest for truth and transcendence.

Q: I get easily angry and hurt when someone insults me. How can I avoid this?

A: Why do you try to avoid it? To suppress pain, anger and humiliation will only cause it to stay in your system in a repressed form. Suppressed emotions can be dangerous - a little anger or hurt can fester over time into a deep and lasting hatred.

Try accepting your emotions without judging yourself. Are you feeling hurt? Right. Now enter completely into the feeling of hurt. Don't avoid it, don't reject it. Don't sympathize with yourself either, and don't direct it against the person who hurt you - simply watch the emotion as it plays in your system. This may take a while - maybe a few hours, even a few days. And then you will see a transformation you never imagined. After all, emotion is energy, tremendous energy. Just how long can so much raw energy circulate in your system?

The moment you accept your pain with no rejection, welcoming its role in your life, the whole quality of pain changes. The same energy that was pain, anger or suffering, is transformed into the blessed emotions of love and bliss. This is compassion, the silent force that moves in each of us, the force that transforms the ugly into the beautiful. And compassion brings its own reward. Just give yourself a chance and you can experience what I am saying! I don't speak philosophy; I speak out of experience.

Pain is simply the response you have chosen to a particular situation.

Q. Why do love and pain always go hand in hand? I try to give a lot of freedom to my partner in my relationships, but just end up getting used.

In the first place, isn’t your idea of ‘giving freedom’ to your beloved a very wrong one? Love itself implies giving the other total freedom, unconditional freedom. To say that you are giving a certain amount of freedom to the other (whatever you consider necessary!) itself shows that you are holding back something in your giving.

It is natural to want to possess your beloved - that is the play of ego. It is difficult to imagine that your beloved may need space and time away from you, isn’t it? You try to do the right thing - by ‘giving freedom’ to your lover. But when she actually uses that freedom, you end up feeling exploited. Honestly, you never expected that she would ever use that freedom to do what she wanted or to be with someone else, did you?

So understand what I am saying and don’t make the mistake of generalizing that ‘every time I give freedom in my relationships, I get used’. Are you sure the fault is not yours as well? The reason that love usually brings with it so much pain is that lovers unknowingly force each other into the golden cage of their own expectations. But true love can never blossom in captivity. You try and imprison your lover, and she does the same, time after time, until you end up feeling that love is so much misery that perhaps it is better not to love at all. But once you close yourself to love, what is left? Nothing!

Love can be a door to joy and freedom, or it can become a living hell. To experience love as pain is to miss the whole point of love. There is a saying, ‘If you love someone, set her free. If she is yours, she will come back to you; if she doesn’t come back, it means she never was yours anyway.’ Try following this, not just in your romantic attachments, but in all your relationships.

Q: We in India have been brought up on the concept of karma - necessary suffering. Is suffering really essential in our lives?

To start with, it will help to realize that suffering is not a state of life, it is a state of mind. It is not an event in your life - it is your response to some event. Whether you suffer or not in a particular situation, depends entirely on your reaction to that situation.

When do you undergo suffering? When you fall ill? When your neighbour gets a new car? When your boyfriend/girlfriend leaves you for someone else?

Well, suppose you decided to just accept these situations without anger or resentment; just as they are, would you still suffer as much? After all, there is nothing inherently painful about your neighbour getting a new car. Even if there is pain when a loved one leaves, you cannot wish it away. Try to accept - to welcome - the inevitability of the moment, without reaction. It is ONLY your negative response to an experience that allows it to hurt you. Don’t you see? No one or nothing can make you suffer without your silent permission!

Make a habit of witnessing experiences, minus your personal judgment. Learn to recognise with clarity the causes of your suffering - the obvious and the subtle. The ability to do this will come - not in a day, but certainly with practice.

One of the most deeply hidden reasons for suffering is that you could be enjoying it! For example, falling ill can become a source of pleasure if it fetches you the attention and care you have been craving for. Examine why it sometimes gives you pleasure to inflict pain on yourself, or on others. Is there a better channel through which you can receive the same pleasure - without the suffering? Become aware - this is the first step.

The second is to accept totally the here and now - without question and without reaction. Awareness with acceptance - this is the only way out of suffering.

The second part of the question - is suffering essential? Yes, in a way it is, because suffering can be a powerful catalyst to growth. Just like a seed has to rupture for the plant to grow and blossom, intense suffering can break down the defenses of your ego, leaving you open and vulnerable to Existence. With your usual thought patterns shattered, you begin to see things as they actually are. You begin to recognize a subtle distance between you and the pain - that it is not ‘your’ pain, something intrinsic in you.

In fact, pain is simply the response you’ve chosen to that particular situation. And once you see that, how can you suffer anymore? In consciously accepting your pain, you truly let go of it.

Suffering is not necessarily the key to bliss. But if you learn your lesson well, suffering can certainly open your eyes to the unreality of suffering. It can teach you how unnecessary it is to suffer at all.

Q: You say that the dropping of pain can bring bliss - but bliss too leads to pain when it ceases. How do I make the move from pain to bliss?

What you first need to understand is that pain and bliss are not opposites. Bliss has nothing to do with pain. Pleasure is the opposite of pain - and like all opposites, they have no existence without each other. You are right: you cannot enjoy pleasure without suffering, without pain. It is significant that ancient Indian scriptures used the same word, pain, to imply both pleasure and pain - because pain is the ultimate result of both.

Bliss is that which arises when you drop the ideas of both pleasure and pain. And you have to drop them both together; there is no other way. Bliss is what floods you when both pain and pleasure have ceased to disturb you. Bliss is beyond pain and pleasure. It is perfect harmony, complete inner silence, total peace.

Are you able to understand?

Recently, an extensive survey was conducted worldwide to determine the deadliest disease afflicting humanity in our time. Many believed it would be AIDS, others suspected it would be cancer, still others assumed that it would be tubercolosis.

When the results were announced, it amazed the world: the killer disease of our century is none of these.

It is depression.