We have two types of pain. One is a physical pain. This is in fact good. If there is no pain, you will never know which part to address and treat. In the physical system, pain acts as an alarm system and you have to do something about it. When arthritis starts giving pain then you know that it requires attention.
There is also an inner emotional pain. This inner pain comes out in different forms, sometimes as anger, sometimes as frustration, sometimes as withdrawal. All uneasiness is inner pain.
When there is an inner pain, I react. I react to the situation inappropriately most of the time. Anger, hatred etc. are all reactions that have a cause. If I know the cause, I can handle the effect. I have to analyze the cause for this pain, the cause for the resistance. If I do not analyze then I cannot stall this reaction.
If I cannot stall and handle this reaction then I will be slowly avoiding all the activities in my life. I will be doing the minimum and not more. I do not want to meet people. I do not want to join any organization. People are burnt out.
They are highly capable, highly educated, and highly sophisticated persons but they have no heart to start any activity. They avoid everything because they are not sure how they will react. They do not go to parties or marriages.
No human being wants isolation. Because of the inner pain and reaction, they are isolated. By avoiding situations, neither the inner pain nor the reaction will go away. On the other hand, an angry person in time becomes angrier. Frustrated become more frustrated.
The inner pain is purely because of resistance and this resistance is because of non-understanding.
The whole problem is because of one’s ignorance and non-understanding of the fact. All that is required is, therefore, a cognitive change and we need to educate ourselves. The moment I see the facts very clearly my fear and my resistance will go away. The child who sees the sun going down for the first time, says, “Mom, the sun is going down. What will happen? Will the whole world become dark?” He is afraid. Then the mother says, “My dear child, don’t worry. The sun will come back.”
He sees the sunrise and the next time when he sees the sunset, he is not afraid. Similarly, the birth of a child and death of a person, both are like sunrise and sunset. One has to see the fact that any association has to culminate in dissociation. The more I understand about these facts, less is the need to remove the resistance. The resistance dissolves away.
Therefore, I have to work on two areas the entire life. The first is surfacing the inner pain and the second is not allowing new inner pain to be born.
All the inner pain is on the other side of the ego and I have to allow it to surface or create a situation so that it surfaces. Once it surfaces, with my understanding and by certain insight, I can allow it to go.
Excerpted from a talk delivered in New Jersey on April 5, 2008.
Swami Pratyagbodhananda Saraswati
