It’s a bit like in childhood when we feel pain in our gums before the growth of a tooth. As children, we are not aware of what is happening and so we resent the pain and cry from it—we want the pain to end. But the elders around us know that there is a reason behind the pain and they don’t panic. This pain is not to be suppressed or avoided because at the other end of the pain is growth and development.

Life begins with pain. The birth of a baby is painful for the mother and the baby. Out of this pain springs forth the breath of life and a wonderful new relationship. But did you know that babies feel pain even before they are born? Such is our intrinsic relationship with pain.

The wise know that all pain, physical or emotional, is always accompanied with self-growth, even though it may not be apparent to us. All real growth arises out of suffering and pain—courage comes from experiencing fear, compassion comes from knowing apathy, success comes from understanding failure.

It’s in the middle of our greatest challenges that we’re also given the opportunity for our highest growth, our grandest glory

Is Pain Your Enemy?

I like the way how Osho explains that Ram and Ravan are actually two sides of the same coin. Take Ravan out of Ramayan, and suddenly Ram’s greatness shrinks. The purpose of Ravan’s existence was to bring out the innate glory of Ram. So is the case with all suffering. Its purpose is served only if we are present to it, instead of escaping it.

But this goes against what we have come to believe. We have learnt that pain is our enemy—and we must run away from it. We have become conditioned to view pain suspiciously, to avoid it at any cost, to suppress it, and scorn at it, not realizing that life uses pain in its own ingenious ways.

Indeed, it’s in the middle of our greatest challenges that we’re also given the opportunity for our highest growth, our grandest glory. From this perspective, suffering can be viewed as our ally, who has assumed an unpleasant role only to help us reach our own objective of self-awareness. We can view crisis, turmoil, and grief as opportunities for growth.

Pain is not a curse. It’s a part of the natural ebb and flow of life itself, just like pleasure

Becoming Intimate With Pain

To allow this growth, we have to become familiar with the suffering, we have to know it intimately. Pema Chödrön, a Buddhist meditation master, writes in her bestselling book When Things Fall Apart, “To stay with that shakiness—to stay with that broken heart, with a rumbling stomach, with the feeling of hopelessness and wanting to get revenge—that is the path of true awakening. Sticking with that uncertainty, getting the knack of relaxing in the midst of chaos, learning not to panic—this is the spiritual path.”

Also read » Pain: A blessing, not a curse

Pain is not a curse. It’s a part of the natural ebb and flow of life itself, just like pleasure. We have to learn not to deaden our pain or ignore it. We have to learn to allow it and view it with compassion instead of disdain. It is difficult to do—but the promise it carries within it is of authentic freedom and self-discovery.

The post Does Pain Have a Purpose? appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

The pain that you create now is always some form of non-acceptance, some form of unconscious resistance to what is. On the level of thought, the resistance is some form of judgement. On the emotional level, it is some form of negativity. The intensity of the pain depends on the degree of resistance to the present moment, and this in turn depends on how strongly you are identified with your mind. The mind always seeks to deny the Now and to escape from it. In other words, the more you are identified with your mind, the more you suffer. Or you may put it like this: the more you are able to honour and accept the Now, the more you are free of pain, of suffering—and free of the egoic mind.

Time and mind are inseparable

Why does the mind habitually deny or resist the Now? Because it cannot function and remain in control without time, which is past and future, so it perceives the timeless Now as threatening. Time and mind are in fact inseparable.

Imagine the Earth devoid of human life, inhabited only by plants and animals. Would it still have a past and a future? Could we still speak of time in any meaningful way? The question “What time is it?” or “What’s the date today?”—if anybody were there to ask it—would be quite meaningless. The oak tree or the eagle would be bemused by such a question. “What time?” they would ask. “Well, of course, it’s now. The time is now. What else is there?”

The mind always seeks to deny the Now and to escape from it

The beginning of dysfunction

Yes, we need the mind as well as time to function in this world, but there comes a point where they take over our lives, and this is where dysfunction, pain and sorrow set in.

The mind, to ensure that it remains in control, seeks continuously to cover up the present moment with past and future, and so, as the vitality and infinite creative potential of Being, which is inseparable from the Now, becomes covered up by time, your true nature becomes obscured by the mind. An increasingly heavy burden of time has been accumulating in the human mind. All individuals are suffering under this burden, but they also keep adding to it every moment whenever they ignore or deny that precious moment or reduce it to a means of getting to some future moment, which only exists in the mind, never in actuality. The accumulation of time in the collective and individual human mind also holds a vast amount of residual pain from the past.

Freedom from pain

If you no longer want to create pain for yourself and others, if you no longer want to add to the residue of past pain that still lives on in you, then don’t create any more time, or at least no more than is necessary to deal with the practical aspects of your life. How to stop creating time? Realise deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make the Now the primary focus of your life. Whereas before you dwelt in time and paid brief visits to the Now, have your dwelling place in the Now and pay brief visits to past and future when required to deal with the practical aspects of your life situation. Always say “yes” to the present moment. What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to something that already is? What could be more insane than to oppose life itself, which is now and always now? Surrender to what is. Say “yes” to life—and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you.

Excerpted with permission from The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment by Eckhart Tolle, published by Yogi Impressions.

The post You can be free from pain right now appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

“I believe that there is nothing more pivotal in the journey of conscious parenting or conscious living than the understanding, integration and evolution of pain,” she says as she brings home the wisdom that our attempts to escape from pain, and protect ourselves and our loved ones from it, is the root cause of our suffering.

This talk on pain as a portal to consciousness has the power to trigger a deep transformation in your life, provided you really get the essence.

Dr Shefali Tsabary is a clinical psychologist and author of The Conscious Parent.

The post Must watch: Dr Shefali Tsabary on pain as a portal to consciousness appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

Death and suffering

You and I are in training to be free: we’re in training to be present, open and embracing unto ourselves, not looking away, not denying, not closing our hearts because we can’t bear it. The statement, “I can’t bear it” is what burns you out in social action. When you’re in the presence of suffering and you contract, the contraction starves you to death.

When you close your heart down to protect yourself from the suffering, you can’t stand it, because what happens is you close yourself off from being fed by the life situation and you’re unable to connect to your living spirit to feed from that spirit.

When people go to a funeral and feel the real grief of the situation, it brings people so close and gives them life experience. It opens areas where often they’ve deadened their minds and their hearts have been closed. That’s why trauma is so profound; it cuts through you.

When you’re in the presence of suffering and you contract, the contraction starves you to death

Pushing pain out

When you’re frightened, you contract, and when you contract, you go into your mind, which reiterates to you what you already know in order to feel safe again. It judges everyone else as a threat to your safety, creating an ‘us’ and ‘them’ paradox. Inevitably, loneliness and hunger for company manifest throughout your own mind.

How then can we stay open to suffering? The answer to this question is to be aware of how we react to pain; at this point, the service of healing can begin. This acknowledgement softens us so that we don’t need to spend our energy protecting ourselves. A silent observing, listening part of yourself can observe the truth and provide guidance that is needed for us to truly be able to help.

Measuring our hurt

In the journey to help others who are suffering it is necessary for us to become aware of our past experiences dealing with suffering. When faced with unpleasant circumstances, it is the perception you hold in your mind that determines the extent to which you suffer. Extreme pain need not be associated with extreme suffering. It is the resistance to pain that accentuates suffering. When we are able to make room for the pain and allow it to come in without resistance, suffering begins to melt away. In fact, there is relief and release. This willingness to explore the parameters and dimensions of one’s own pain helps us to cease projecting our pain onto others and acknowledge the suffering that actually exists. It allows us to be with someone in their pain, to truly share and experience healing with each another.

Once you recognise this aspect of suffering, there’s nothing else to do but keep working on becoming more conscious; no big deal, nobody is asking you for anything. You’re just going to perpetuate your own misery and suffering along with everybody else’s if you don’t.

Extreme pain need not be associated with extreme suffering. It is the resistance to pain that accentuates suffering

What can I give?

When you meet someone who is suffering, what do you have to offer them? You could offer your empathy, “Oh, God, I just can’t imagine how bad that suffering must be.” That’s a good thing to offer, because they feel like someone is listening to them.

The other thing you can offer them is your joy, your presence, your ‘not getting caught in it all’. When you aren’t caught in their suffering, you understand the intensity of their experience while at the same time remaining  present, not clinging to anything, just watching the phenomena of the universe change. Then your acts can truly be compassionate. That is where the root of compassion is.

Living the moment

It just seems that we touch moments where we feel deeply connected; then a moment later, it’s a new moment, and we want to cling to the experience. I invite you not to cling; I invite you to open up to the next moment and let it have its own richness. Nothing will kill the glow faster than clinging. So as you are out in the universe—driving cars, cooking supper, doing laundry and answering phone calls, I invite you to look at your life as the most remarkable curriculum.

When I was with Aldous Huxley, there were just a few words he kept using; one was “Extraordinary,” another was, “How curious!” and another was “How odd!” And I realised that everything in life is extraordinary if I’m really looking at it. It’s true that there’s nothing new under the sun, yet somehow everything is still all so fresh. Just take your painful experiences and allow them to be grist for the mill of your awakening.

The post How to stay open to suffering without clinging to it appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.