About Pain in the Body - 10th May 2017

The question is: how should one deal with pain in the body?

So, I'm going to take a bit of a longer route. I want to discuss this because it is very important for those of you who have been in Satsang for a while to get a little bit more clarity on our position with respect to the body. What is our true position in relation to the body? For that, we must rely on our insights of the body. How is the body experienced? You experience the body visually; you look at the hands, the shape, the volume. And also, you experience the body internally as a set of sensations. Because the sensations seem so intimate to us, it is a popular belief that 'I am something which is contained within this body.' But I want all of us to look together at this and see whether it is the body that contains your Being, your presence, or whether it is the presence which contains the body.

So, allowing yourself to experience the sensations of this body and notice where the sensations are experienced. Let's use the term 'space of experiencing' for a while. Are the sensations of the body not experienced in the same space of experiencing as you are experiencing this voice right now? All of the experiences, are they not experienced in the same space of experiencing? A movement of our attention doesn't happen only within this space of experiencing. Everything in a phenomenal experience happens within us. And by 'us,' I mean it in the space of my existence, the space of my Being, which is the one space in which all experiences happen.

Don't be in a rush to jump to this conclusion. Don't be in a rush to jump to this conclusion, but as you keep looking, it will be inevitable that you will find that this bundle of flesh and blood is just an aspect of my own Being. It will not contain me; I contain it within my existence. I am, and it is within the same existence, 'I Am,' that all of the experiences are also happening. All of the phenomena are also experienced, including the primal phenomena of time and space; all happen within my Being.

As we come more and more to this recognition, we will find more openness to experience anything that this realm has to offer, including the sensations of pain in this body. And in this openness, it is not a promise that the pain goes away. But all of us can testify and say that accepting pain is a lot easier to handle than resisting. As there is acceptance of all sensations, all energetic movements within your Being, as there is openness for this world to be as it is, for the body to be as it is, then all of us have found that in this openness and with this recognition, the pain does not seem as strong and long-reigning as it did when it was met with resistance. This should be the starting point: this recognition of Being, of your Beingness, Being without limit. So at least you can say the limits cannot be found.