CHAPTER 1 From Pain to Bliss
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What is pain?
FROM PAIN TO BLISS
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.
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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.
A small story
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.
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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.
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.
A small story
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.
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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.
small story
A
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.
<sup>1.</sup> Steamed pancakes made of rice flour
<sup>2.</sup> Steamed pancakes made of rice flour
<sup>3.</sup> Hindu Sweet
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.
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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 small story
An engineer working in a large firm would bring the same dish for lunch everyday.
Every day he would complain about how much he hated that particular dish, and his sympathetic friends would share their lunch with him.
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.
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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.
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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.
Suddenly, a shaft of lightning flashed in the sky.
A small story
The ordinary man began to tremble in fear.
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.
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As the Gita says:
Sama dukkha sukha swastha sama loshtaashma kaanchana Tulya priyaapriyo dheerasthulya nindaatma samstuti
(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 THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM - eternal bliss. My blessings are always with you.