Topic: The experience of pain due to sensorial data, its conceptual interpretation and the ever-present bliss of awareness.
Dearest Ramji,
I just finished transcribing the second question I asked you last Sunday during your Zoominar. This one was on the topic of the separate factors in the experience of pain (sensorial data and conceptual interpretation of those data) and the ever-present bliss of awareness. Your answer was very enlightening for me. I was thinking that perhaps other of your students, especially those dealing with physical pain, may find this satsang helpful? So, I am attaching it in the event you wish to post it along with your satsangs in your website. Of course, whatever you decide is fine with me.
Could you talk about the difference between pleasure and pain (body oriented) and happiness and suffering (conceptual)?
Ramji: Yes, pleasure and pain is inevitable, as far as the body goes. But the suffering is all the thoughts that you have about pleasure and pain. That’s all. You have no choice about pleasure and pain. The Gita is very clear about that.
Now, you actually can control pleasure and pain to a large degree if you manage the gunas. This is assuming you know what it is to manage the gunas. For example, you can avoid acting when you are too rajasic or tamasic for the situation you are confronted with. When you are too rajasic or too tamasic you make mistakes and break the physical laws of the universe, and damage your physical instrument. For example, sports people who live right on the edge of danger. The just factor in injuries because they are too rajasic. They are going so fast that the mind gets ahead of the body, they make a mistake and injury comes. If you are too tamasic, your mind is going to be behind your body, it is not going to be there to protect the body and to anticipate problems. So you will get wacked. If you can manage these two energies, you can avoid a lot of pain.
Once you have pain, there is nothing you can do about it, except look at your relationship to it. The suffering is in the subtle body. The way you manage the mental and emotional suffering is by subtracting the mental and emotional issues around the pain by taking it as prasad. In other words, seeing the inevitability of the pain, seeing it as Isvara’s will, and putting my attention on the Self, or on some other thought that does not produce pain. So, there is always an opportunity to avoid the suffering to a large degree, although it is difficult to do that when you feel the pain. It is very difficult to keep your mind on some other thought, because the pain is always there, so there is always a tension and it is a form of suffering, too.
So there is no magic bullet to remove pain, but you can remove a lot of the suffering. And it is the only intelligent thing to do, because if you don’t manage your mind when you are in pain, then your life is going to deteriorate because you won’t be able to function effectively, particularly around other people. Nobody likes to be around people who are in pain, because the pain leaks into them by osmosis. It is all mithya stuff, but it is tricky. Some of this stuff you just have to suffer as your parabdha karma and be as cheerful as you can around it.
Marie: Just to clarify my question. It just strikes me suffering is very conceptual, but the pain is more sensorial. It’s like in a different language. And there is still some interpretation of the sensorial data.
Ramji: Yes, there is!
Marie: I have chronic pain that fluctuates, and I play with this concept quite a bit. And there are times that the pain is not too high, and I can interpret it differently, which causes relaxation.
Ramji: Yes, that is right.
Marie: But where I was going with this was more at the extremes. If I were fully anchored in pure awareness, and the raw data, the sensorial data of pain were to come up in front of “Me;” the sensorial data would be there but the interpretation would not be there.
Ramji: Even if the interpretation is there, it is still mithya. But, that’s right. The solution is to discount the interpretation as mithya and stick with the bliss of awareness because the bliss of awareness is present too! In other words, underneath, behind that pain and behind that interpretation that is taking place in the Subtle Body, behind that sensorial data and the interpretation of that data, there is a current of well-being, satisfaction bliss operating all the time. It is the bliss of existence, because of which you always want to live another day, pain or no pain. So, Definitely, the interpretation disappears and if you train yourself to keep your attention on that, then sometimes the pain just disappears too.
The meditation of ashtanga yoga is very good for that; it teaches you how to develop that concentration on the Self, and how to deepen that attention, and how to get totally absorbed in that object, that is, in the Self, Awareness, to the point that you can avoid the pain to a large degree. Sometimes completely! Like in Ramana’s case, he was so good at meditation, at samadhi, that he didn’t realize that his body was being eaten by insects. He just sat there absorbed by the intense bliss of awareness, that he was unaware of his body. Some yogis decided to take care of him and heal him; they cleaned him up and looked after him from that point on.
So, it’s a lot of work! The best thing is to be very deliberate and rational and think about what you are doing before doing it and not put yourself in situations that are going to produce pain. And you can do that!
I’m 80 and I can fall down and break a limb. I work outside in a very steep hillside trimming trees. I use a power saw and other implements. I can easily go tumbling or cut-off my leg with my saw. But I am very very conscious and very aware, and I don’t let any other thoughts intrude my mind. I don’t want to get pain or suffering. On the other hand, you should do what is right for you to do even if it involves danger or you won’t grow.
Marie: Would that be equivalent to developing a vasana of staying with the bliss of pure awareness?
Ramji: Yeah! You want a samadhi vasana! I’ve a new book on the Patanjali Yoga Sutras coming within the next month. Look for it on the website. We’ll advertise it in a newsletter too. There is some practical information about how you can develop this concentration and this deep meditation, and train your mind to become more powerful.
Marie: Thank you, thank you.
Ramji: You’re welcome.
