Auto-SummaryThe post discusses the nature of chronic physical pain and mental/emotional disorders, suggesting they cannot be fully healed by conventional medicine. These issues stem from a deeper, self-preserving energy that seeks energetic food in the form of negative thoughts and behaviors. The energy can be transmuted into constructive patterns through awareness and observation from a Higher Self perspective. Suffering through this process can lead to increased consciousness, aliveness, and peace. The key is to become aware of the pain's attempts to control the mind and to observe thoughts and feelings from a higher level of awareness. This practice can lead to a transformation of energy and a shift from pain to peace.
Quote: adamist said: Unfortunately, most chronic physical pain and also any deep-seated mental and emotional disorders usually can't be healed by the conventional methods of today's doctors and medicines. Their root of dysfunction lies at a far deeper level than medicine or standard treatment options could ever reach. The only hope that these methods of treatment can offer is: short term symptom relief of pain and emotional anxiety; temporary suppression of mind activity; or disorder transference. Disorder transference is the destruction of the form of the present disorder on a superficial level without destroying the deep seed, which caused it in the first place. Hence, the dysfunctional energy is still alive and so creates a new form (disorder) to express itself.
Chronic pain and mental and emotional disorders can be likened to a little ball of energy, which lives inside of us and seems to possess a rudimentary level of intelligence and consciousness. This gives it a self-preservation quality. It seeks energetic food that it can digest (my own negative thoughts and behaviors as well as others) and so grow and expand like any other life form. You can never kill this energy as we have learned in the second grade; energy cannot be created or destroyed. But it can be transmuted or changed from a destructive pattern (felt as pain) into a constructive pattern (felt as peace and calmness). Based on this principle, one could assume that the degree of intense pain that a person is experiencing is actually a good indicator of the potential peace that is available to him.
The way that your pain seeks to strengthen itself is by taking your mind over. It waits for a time when you're emotionally vulnerable and then asserts itself vigorously into your inner space as a feeling of anxiety or dis-ease and tries to get your mind involved. That is to say, to get your mind to concentrate on and to resist the painful feeling inside which will in turn produce painful thoughts like: I hate the way this feels; I'm going to go crazy; I can't take this anymore; etc. These thoughts produce negative energy and is the pain's favorite food since they're both negative in their nature and so is very edible for the pain. Once this ball of pain is full of food and thus satisfied it will rest back inside of you and may not trouble you anymore for some time. But when it becomes hungry again or when it senses a good opportunity to take your mind over (when you're emotionally vulnerable) it will use you to feed it more energy. Such times include: when your feelings are hurt; when you're depressed; when you're angry; or when someone has wronged you for apparently no reason and you're emotionally wounded by their actions. Basically whenever life deals us a hand that we don't like, our resistance to that moment wakes up our pain and we suffer. Hence it's a good idea to structure our life in such a way that we don't create unnecessary stress. We will experience enough stress and exams as it is by natural reasons. We don't need to add any extra lessons to our already heavy load. Whenever we are not centered and become overly emotional, we are weak and can easily be taken advantage of by people or by other energetic entities (negative habitual thought and emotional patterns).
Freeing yourself from this dysfunction lies in the ability to become aware of when you first feel the pain inside you start to wake up and demand your attention. Observe it as best as you can from the vantage point of your Higher Self and watch the whole process unfold without letting it take you over and start controlling your thoughts and actions. Concentrate on the part in you that's aware of the pain instead of concentrating on the pain itself. Become aware of how your pain tries to possess your mind and then make you start thinking negative. Instead of obeying these thoughts and believing that they're coming from you, watch them as if you were listening to a tape recorder. Don't resist the pain by saying that you hate it and by wishing that it wasn't there. This will only cause you to feel more pain. Become aware of how it feels to not want to feel the way that you feel or think the way that you're thinking. Always try to observe your thoughts and feelings from this higher level of awareness. Live up here instead down there with your thoughts and feelings. Try to laugh at what your mind is telling you and at the habits and rituals that you're constantly engaged in. Look down on it from above and see how you’re trapped in a self-created delusion. You’ve designed a game, decided to play it, and now you can’t stop. In fact you’ve brainwashed yourself into thinking that this game is reality. You’ve been hypnotized and don’t even remember when or how it happened.
At the same time you must be willing to suffer, especially at the beginning. There's no other way. No matter how hard you try to practice this higher awareness and know that you are not your pain, there will be times where you will still suffer in spite of your efforts. Just know that you're being cleansed and old stagnate patterns are being burnt up through this fire of suffering. There's always some deep karmic reason as to why you're feeling the way that you're feeling. This moment is exactly the way it is supposed to be. If we could see this from a higher perspective, we would realize that this is the exact training that we need right now in order that we can become more conscious in the future. Every time that we experience unreasonable emotional pain, it's a sign that we still have pent up energy inside of us that must be dissolved in order to feel the peace that's behind it. So look upon this uncomfortable period as an exam. The higher our passing score is the more pain we've dissolved. You'll actually have moments (maybe not many at first) where you will enjoy the intense pressure of pain. The strong current of emotion can give you a incredible sense of the power that's inside you. It will also increase your sense of aliveness and so you won't have to look out into the world to give you confirmation that you exist. Again, you can never lose energy, it merely changes it's form of expression. Through the process of surrender you put the power of alchemy into operation. You literally can change the vibratory rate of your energy. It will shift from a slow and heavy vibration of pain to a quicker and finer vibration of peace. Virtues such as calmness, self-control, and your ability to concentrate will greatly increase. This new influx of energy will be pouring through you and opening channels that up until now have been closed.
In my opinion watching your pain is the hardest principle of them all to practice. But it's also one of the best transforming agents that there is. I have hundreds of opportunities every day to dissolve pain. If I wanted to, I could constantly ask myself each moment, are these the thoughts and feelings that I want to be experiencing right now? If they aren't then I can become still, not feed them anymore of my energy (not react to their demands), and then wait for the peace underneath to shine through. Instead of feeling your mind, try to feel your presence. Feel that invisible energy inside and around you. It feels like warm electricity. Let this awareness of your energy field give you confirmation that you exist as opposed to seeking it from your mind or the pain that you feel. Let this be your spiritual practice in any situation that you find yourself in. Then you will feel calmer and more in tune with your depths. You'll be free of the roller coaster ride of emotions that identification with your mind will always promote.
To be free of emotional pain, you must go through it, not around it. Then in time you will experience the ultimate paradox; being in pain but yet not feeling the pain. There will be space between your awareness of the pain and the pain itself. It's this space that you will be living in, instead of being identified with the pain.
Of course, the first question will usually be, "How can I watch my pain and not be affected by it? It hurts!!!" Yes it does. It takes practice. Most people have been unconscious victims their entire lives to this dynamic process and so it will take time for them to reestablish control of themselves. The results may seem slow at first. But at some point after continuous and relentless effort at reassuming control of yourself, spiritual growth will become exponential. Good habits will become part of your character and so being happy and free of pain will seem effortless just as feeling bad and helpless used to seem like such a natural and automatic state to be in.
It's exceptionally hard for people who have emotional and mental disorders to watch their pain. The intense energetic charge behind their pain and habitual way of thinking is extremely strong and so it seems impossible to think that they could ever be free from such a deeply rooted dysfunction. This is the purpose of yoga. Living a yogic life puts us in rhythm with universal life intelligence which gives us the power that we need to overcome the seemingly impossible. Spend at least an hour every day walking through the woods or on the beach. Allow nature to absorb your stress and pain. Then allow her to recharge you with the life current from the universe.
People who have suffered deeply and have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind are usually the people who end up becoming spiritual teachers and healers. Their abundant life force which they once experienced as constant pain became transmuted by the fire of spirituality into radiant consciousness. This different grade of finer energy blew open their higher channels which are responsible for unleashing super human powers.
After this transformation, the most painful day in your life seems like a dream as you finally are experiencing your own inner joy. This newfound joy isn't a dream but in fact a realization of your Self.
~YASH~
I don't how many of you remember him, but I had mixed emotions about the guy. He was a renowned thief that took only from 'the man'. I question his method and theory only because I attempted it, at one point in my life. I was wrong and so is he. A cool guy, nonetheless. A deep thinker. He may have just copied and pasted like I just did, but I'll bet that he read it all(like I did).
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