Suffer Pain

We all suffer pain right from the time we took birth. There isn’t a single person who hasn’t lived in pain. It may be physical or mental, intense or mild, accompanied by hurt, yet we all suffer.
So when we say that we experience pain, what actually happens and where? When does it begin? We are so much used to getting hurt and feeling pain right from before we are born.
Living in a tiny hovel, suspended upside down, gurgling in the waters, forcibly being prodded and poked around in our home called the womb, we have suffered so many atrocities that we seem to care less therein. But the moment we are out of the mothers womb, we yell our head off in pain and distress! So, as you now will agree, we are enjoyers of physical and mental pain even before we are squeezed out of our mothers womb.
Human beings are accustomed to torture by submission even when they are small. Imagine the breasts being shoved inside your little mouths, gooey stuff poured down your throat as baby food, forced to eat tasteless cereals and grains and made to drink so called healthy stuff. We are conditioned to stuff in that, which the grown ups believe is good for us! Just offer the same to a grown up and he will puke. Imagine the choice is between two different cereal boxes only. What a choice?
Now I am sure you have guessed, we have become acclimatized to pain and hurt.
When a child falls and you are watching her and sympathize with her, she yells her head off making so much noise that you want to give her a bribe to shut up. The child is conditioning you by yelling off and crying loud. I am sure a lactating woman will tell you that her breasts fill up with milk when the child cries. Now isn’t that conditioning? You may disagree to it because you feel it is love. Of course, I won’t discount that too. It’s a two way process. But here I am telling you that the painful cry has conditioned you, dear mother!
As we grow up, pain follows us around. We cry when someone sees us falling and getting hurt. But we don’t cry loud or hard if no one is watching. In a similar manner, physical pain is experienced by us terribly if we cut ourselves or bruise. But if we aren’t aware that we are hurt or injured then we do not experience pain. It’s only when we observe and pay attention to the hurt that we experience physical pain. So what does it tell you about pain?
You experience physical or mental pain only far more if your mind is in it, otherwise you don’t! Let’s say 90% of the pain is mentally felt and only 10% is physical. Scientifically nerve endings carry the impulse to pain centers to experience the pain. But a leprosy patient may loose a finger and still won’t know about it! How is that possible? So it goes to show that physical pain is more mind stuff. Some of it is localized in that place, which is the finger, but otherwise you will not experience it very much.
So isn’t it logical that if you were to control your mind, you can actually control pain? Even in case of mental agony or hurt, we can control it mentally by minding our mind.
This is not a physiological or psychological discourse but a spiritual one so I will teach you how to override that mind spiritually.
We, the spiritualist kind can handle physical or mental issues better because we have sublimated our minds. Not that it doesn’t stand up once in a while but we can safely say major issues won’t hurt us more. Even if we were to go for our parents funeral, we won’t show emotion or tears. If someone calls us names, which everyone does btw, it doesn’t affect us and make us feel bad or miserable. Praises and criticism cannot disturb the peace we feel. Even anaesthesia doesn’t affect us much. I could walk through the entire process of the surgery by recounting it in detail.
So how do we do it? Let me explain it here. The three things we teach are called dispassion, detachment and discrimination. These three are the most powerful tools of overcoming the mind.
You have to become dispassionate to everything in life. It’s not important to passionately follow the results. When you focus on end results and have extreme desires and if the results are contrary then we feel bad and hurt. When we focus on success and if we fail, we are terribly hurt. So in spiritual, we teach you not to bother about results since these will upset or excite you depending on the outcomes. We teach you not to focus on results but to put in your best and move on. Any which way the result is never in your hands so why bother. So if you want to overcome physical or mental pain and hurt, become dispassionate. Don’t bother about end results but just put in your 100% and leave the answer to God. Let Him give you what He deems fit. That will ease your pain.
Now the next is called detachment and that means you should give up all attachments. You are attached to your child or husband and so if they misbehave or act badly, you will feel hurt. Your child grows up and goes far away for her studies then you are bound to feel bad and cry. Similarly, your husband having an extramarital affair will screw your happiness and you will be miserable.
In spiritual we teach you detachment and that means, nothing belongs to you. We ask you to stop taking ownership of anything at all. If we do not own anything then we won’t feel bad if we loose it or it gets destroyed. So anyone dying or causing grievance against you won’t hurt you. If you consider anything as your property, you are bound to feel good or hurt, if you are praised or criticized for it. But if you don’t take credit for it or show ownership then it won’t upset you. So detachment is the second most important tool for not feeling hurt or pain. Nothing belongs to you, including the hurt or pain.
The last is discriminate. We consider this body as ours and if anything happens to it we feel it. Whether it’s good or bad effects of any material worldly action, we accept it as if belonging to our body so it affects us. Discrimination in spiritual teaches us that we are not the body but we are divine beings. Everything besides God is unreal. If this body is unreal so why are we supposed to get hurt or feel pain? Spirituality teaches us that we are living as if in a dream, so when we wake up, everything will disappear.
Knowing the truth that we are not the body will help us detach and discriminate so we won’t feel hurt that much. The yogi believes that he is not the body, so he can live in extreme cold climates also without feeling cold. He has overcome his mind and senses so nothing affects him.
By using these above methods you can overcome any kind of pain or hurt in your life. Become dispassionate and know that results are not in your hands so don’t bother about them. Just do it with complete dedication and 100% efforts and move on.
Next drop all expectations by not having any attachments with anything or anyone. Hence detachment will help in freeing your mind from expectations.
Lastly do discriminate and know that nothing belongs to you and only God is real and this body is just a tool. The tool never feels hurt (imagine the chisel) so be the best tool in the hand of God. Stop blaming yourself since you are not the owner of it.
This way pain will never hurt you anymore.