Lessons from Pain

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Lessons from Pain

All of us have suffered pain at some point or the other in our lives – the pain could be physical, emotional or mental. Pain and suffering remain with life, they are a part of it. One just needs a clarity to see everything in the right perspective, everything just where it belongs. Then it all falls in line; even pain, even suffering become a part of a greater harmony. Not that they change. They remain, they are a part of our life, but now they are not isolated facts – they have become a part of a greater whole. When we are clear in our perspective, we can see that the greater whole cannot exist without this part; it is a must.

We accept it, because happiness cannot be without unhappiness – this is a fundamental rule about the duality in life – just as day cannot be without night. When everything falls in perspective, the total attitude changes. When we attain to a certain clarity, then we see one night between two days. Ordinarily when we look at unhappiness, sadness, frustration, we take it apart from the context, we look at it as an isolated thing, and then it becomes extremely painful because it seems meaningless.

When there is pain, go deeply into it, don’t avoid it. Let it be so, be open to it and become as sensitive as possible. Let the pain penetrate to our very core. Suffer it. And when the pleasure comes, let that too move one to one’s innermost core. When there is pain be with pain, and when there is pleasure be with pleasure. Become so totally sensitive that each moment of pain and pleasure is a great adventure. If we can do this, we will understand that pain too is beautiful. It is as beautiful as pleasure. It brings sharpness to our being and it also brings awareness to our being – sometimes even more than pleasure.

Pleasure dulls. That’s why people who live just in indulgence will be found to be shallow, we will not see any depth in them. They have not known pain at all; they have lived only on the surface, moving from one pleasure to another.

Pain makes one very alert, pain makes one very compassionate and pain makes one sensitive to others’ pains too. The heart grows because of pain. It is beautiful, it has its own beauty. It is a gift of existence and there must be a hidden treasure in it. Enjoy that too, don’t reject it. Accept it, welcome it and be with it. In the beginning it will be difficult, arduous. But by and by we will learn the taste of it.

The taste has to be learned – it is just like other tastes. It shakes all dust, all stupor and sleepiness away from us. It makes us more fully mindful than anything else. In pain we can be more meditative than in pleasure.

Pleasure is more distracting. Pleasure engulfs us. In pleasure we abandon consciousness. Pleasure tends to us unconscious; pleasure is a sort of oblivion, a forgetfulness. Pain is a remembrance: we cannot forget pain.