michaelsharrington (Hridayam)

One of my friends once said, “I’ve had so much pain in my life; I try to have as much pleasure as possible.”

I smiled and said, “That’s understandable but pleasure and pain alternate back and forth. Why not try going beyond pleasure and pain?”

My friend was unable to fathom what I was pointing to at the time. For them pain was the opposite of pleasure- one to be enjoyed, the other to be avoided at all costs. Yet pain and pleasure are inseparable; they are always attached and only ideas and conclusions separated by the mind.

Strong pain calls us to attention.

If one was lost in thought, focusing on some idea or concept…WHAM, an acute pain episode arrives like a thunderclap! Whatever else was going on is suddenly of no concern. The immediate sensation of pain has made those things trivial, mute, and inconsequential.

Of course, we can try to escape pain by distraction, in various activities of the mind and body. And most do. If the pain is intense enough, however, only through full awareness can one meet it and go beyond all pain. The pain may seem unbearable, yet if we watch it with awareness, the pain becomes inseparable from awareness. If one pays close attention, they will see gaps in the experience of pain. Even the most intense, unrelenting pain is not constant.

Let that sink in.

So what is happening in that SPACE where no pain exists? YOU ARE, your Real Being, the true Self.

If we fully accept pain, it does not lead to suffering. This is difficult for most people to accept. You can verify this truth only through your direct experience. Pain when witnessed with full awareness, becomes another sensation, and like all sensations it is flickering and transient, merely arising and passing away.

Awareness, as the witnessing consciousness, is JOY-the natural state. When pain is accepted fully, JOY is not covered up by stories about the pain.

As the spiritual Master Nisargadatta once said:

“Pleasure is readily accepted, while all the powers of the ego-self reject pain. The acceptance of pain is the denial of ego-self, which stands in the way of true happiness; the wholehearted acceptance of pain releases the springs of true happiness. Beyond pain and pleasure there is bliss.”

As we accept pain, we move deeper into the All-Abiding Awareness, the Home of the Self.