Pain Must Have A Stop

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Reprinted, with grateful thanks, from

 

`Vedanta Kesari', May 1965.

 

Although the True nature of man as defined by the Upanisads is

Absolute, Infinite, and has the attributes of pure existence, pure

consciousness, and pure joy, we find most commonly that we are

neither happy and free from pain, nor secure and free from fear, nor

all-knowing and free from ignorance. Ordinarily, when life is

miserable and we are racked with pain and feel shrunken by

oppressions, we could laugh at the idea that there is anything

absolute and free about us. Why is this?

 

Pain is there as an opposite to pleasure and is experienced by the

mind of an embodied soul (jiva) which is conditioned by desires and

ignorance. Pain exists only for him, the individual. For on the

Universal level spoken of by the Upanisads there is neither pleasure

nor pain. By clinging to pleasures and identifying himself with body

and mind, the individual (jiva) causes a kind of imbalance where he

experiences now pleasure and now pain in their full intensity. But on

the universal level (Cosmic Mind or God) these two can be said to

have neutralised each other so that neither is experienced. Thus

during the period of his life when Sri Ramakrishna had the painful

throat cancer he said: `I notice that when my mind is united with God

the suffering of the body is left aside.'

 

The desires and ignorance which cause the imbalance and individuality

have no existence apart from the mind, and the mind again, has no

existence apart from the soul (atman) - like waves which are not

separate from the ocean although they may each have an individual

form. Therefore jivahood - the individualised state with its

pleasures and pains - is experienced in mind alone. But mind per se

is unconscious and unintelligent and derives the attributes of

consciousness and intelligence by reflection from the soul which

alone is pure consciousness. It is only by conjunction of the mind

with the soul that jivahood and pain are experienced. And conjunction

occurs due to ignorance of the true nature of the soul - and this in

turn brings in its train egoism, attachment, aversion, and attachment

to life which are the afflictions (kleshas) and the direct cause of

pain. These, again, are not to be found in the soul but only in the

mind. Each time there is a perception, feeling or thought there is a

reaction in the mind like a wave and when the embodied soul (jiva)

identifies itself with this there arises ego and personality with

their inherent desires and aversions. These in turn bring into being

the causal chain of karma, and one painful situation is the cause of

another.

 

Two main ways are given for the cure. One is the way of knowledge

(jnana) by the practice of discrimination between the true Reality

and the apparent one, renunciation of all elements of the apparent

reality which he finds to be the non-Self, and by meditation. It is

the wilful withdrawal of the reflected consciousness from the mirror

of the mind-waves. This results in the disjunction of the true Self

or soul from the body-mind mechanism and man abides in his own

blissful nature, full of peace and free from pain. Such a mind,

deprived of its reflected consciousness, ceases to exist as mind and

no longer has any relation to personality or ego. Then the question

of pain does not arise, for where there is no ego there can be no

pain.

 

- Swami Yatiswarananda

 

To be continued...