On Pain

Who is the cause of suffering in my life?

“आप गैरों की बात करते है, हमने अपनों को आजमाया है!”

you talk of others, but I’ve always been hurt by my own.

Whenever we hear this couplet or something akin to this, the immediate “my people who’ve hurt me” is connected to pain and anguish caused by near and dear ones!

But in actuality the talk here was not of the people in my life but all those that I cherish as my own and I call as “MINE”. The “MINE” that causes me pain are:
· Ego
· Memories
· Emotions
· My body
· My mind
These prized possessions of MINE have been the causative factors of pain and all through, I was made to believe that my pain was because of :
a. People not living upto my expectations
b. Situations not being conducive to me

No suffering be it anger, pain, frustrations, tension, worry etc are not caused by the people in our Lives. Yes, I repeat – No pain and suffering is caused by “The people” in our “Lives”. No person can be the cause of pain in my life. A person can be the catalyst at the max to create a situation that doesn’t befit my taste, but he cannot inflict pain on me. SITUATION IS REAL BUT SUFFERING IS PURELY OPTIONAL – OUR OPTION AND CHOICE ONLY!

We USE PEOPLE to inflict pain in ourselves. Yes, I repeat – we on our own USE people to suffer in life. People, however they are cannot be the cause of suffering or pain in my life. They can just give me an excuse to suffer. But that excuse is purely my own personal choice. Still confused? Well, this is how it goes…..

This is all the game of the Ego. To survive, it needs emotions. It grows faster with negative emotions. Negative emotions are the best shield for an Ego to survive. And to survive, it uses the body as the feeding machine. Pain when experienced, releases certain chemicals in the body. The body gets a high during such releases.

It is the same as in the case of a drug, alcohol or any other addiction. Everything is just a chemical addiction fundamentally speaking.

So, at the appointed time our system longs for that chemical and to release that chemical, ego logs on to the memory bank and comes out with people and situations which can help me to produce that chemical in my system.

Thanks to my “good memory” I very easily log on to not one but many situations that can produce the required emotion – say pain here immediately. The necessary chemical is produced. I suffer because of it. My Mind tells me it is because of “That Person” or “Situation” I am suffering.

This branding acts as “tags” and makes it easy to access when I need to produce these chemicals the next time.

The body in the mean time gets used to these chemicals and longs for it more often. Same as in the case of any addiction, we end up increasing the dosage of pain at period intervals.

My Ego fools my Mind into believing that “People” and “Situations” have caused this pain in my life. As the blame is on others, we expect them to heal it which never happens. Because, it was never them in the first place.

Healing not happening is what Ego wants. And our suffering continues and our Ego becomes bigger and bigger as our suffering and pain become more and more.

This shift of the reality is what is classically called as “Maya”.

So, when you are talking and assuming your suffering to be caused by the People in your life, it is your OWN i.e., ego, body, mind, memory and emotions which are the real culprits.

So, I said “आप काँटों से दामन बच्चाके चलते है
हमने फूलों से ज़ख्म खाए है”

“You try to save yourself from thorns, but I have been hurt by flowers”.

Beware of “Mine” and all that constitutes “Mine”.

Wishing you a happy and peaceful living

revathi