Page 36 - NAMAH Oct 2015
P. 36
Namah Vol. 23, Issue 3, 15th October 2015
more harmonised inside and the circuitry Nevertheless, as I claimed earlier, pain does
becomes more coherent and fluid. have important lessons to impart. It increases
our capacity to endure. As Sri Aurobindo
I believe that the faintest connection with writes, it is a ‘schooling’1. In the end, we have
our inner Truth can initiate this process. If to understand that by bottling away the bad
the connection is properly nurtured, our experiences one is depriving oneself of the
consciousness will inevitably expand. I totality of experience. There are no shortcuts
believe too that we can learn to expand in around pain, one has to go through it. Once
an integral way, in a way that includes every one has begun this path, if one runs away
facet of the being. Such a process contributes from it, the affliction will only become more
to a greater wholeness and health. However, acute.
initially at least, I found it easier to cling to a
lever to accelerate this process. I connect with Steps to expansion
the leading part of my nature, the ‘divine
possibility’ (3) to bring about the transition. I Seeing the reality of pain always makes a
find the shift to be largely spontaneous. As good start. It gives the mind an under-
soon as the heart starts to sing, a new sense standing, which will ease away many of its
of well-being and freedom gradually begins surface anxieties. These kinds of tensions
to descend over the entire being. I find the often plague the surface part of the mind. We
connection can never be coerced by the find that we are able to bear so much more if
artificiality of the mind. From my experience, fear and anxiety are eradicated. Those factors
nothing has the capacity to expand the being are largely brought about by the surface mind
more than love. and if the mental factor is removed the body
can then be left to find its own way forward
Dealing with pain (6). The body always fares better without the
interference of the surface mind. So the first
Much is said about ‘management’and coping step towards expanding beyond pain is to
with pain, but dare we dream of annihilating try to quieten this part of the mind. There are
it altogether? I find that coping and managing many ways of doing this. I find it effective
tend to deaden the very experience we need just to constantly ‘step back’ from it and dwell
to go through. Everything has to be felt and in a truer home, the heart.
experienced, including the pain. It is by going
inside the pain and yet by ‘stepping back’ The surface mind has a way of ‘fixing’ on
from it that the richness of life’s wholeness pain: it identifies with it; ultimately it can
can be more tangibly embraced. By stepping even become it. This state of affairs only
back, one assumes a ‘witness’ poise and can increases the damage that pain causes. So once
more easily look upon pain as something one goes beyond the narrower corridors of the
which has come from outside and something mind, we can then look toward expanding
which does not truly belong to us (4). our consciousness a great deal more.
1 “Pain is the touch of our Mother teaching us how to bear and grow in rapture. She has three
stages of her schooling, endurance first, next equality of soul, last ecstasy. (5).”
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