PAST PAIN: DISSOLVING THE PAIN-BODY

 

As long as you are unable to access the power of the Now, every

emotional pain that you experience leaves behind a residue of pain

that lives on in you. It merges with the pain from the past, which was

already there, and becomes lodged in your mind and body. This, of

course, includes the pain you suffered as a child, caused by the

unconsciousness of the world into which you were born.

This accumulated pain is a negative energy field that occupies your

body and mind. If you look on it as an invisible entity in its own right,

you are getting quite close to the truth. It’s the emotional pain-body.

It has two modes of being: dormant and active. A pain-body may be

dormant 90 percent of the time; in a deeply unhappy person, though,

it may be active up to 100 percent of the time. Some people live

almost entirely through their pain-body, while others may experience

it only in certain situations, such as intimate relationships, or

situations linked with past loss or abandonment, physical or emotional

hurt, and so on. Anything can trigger it, particularly if it resonates with

a pain pattern from your past. When it is ready to awaken from its

dormant stage, even a thought or an innocent remark made by

someone close to you can activate it.

Some pain-bodies are obnoxious but relatively harmless, for example

like a child who won’t stop whining. Others are vicious and destructive

monsters, true demons. Some are physically violent; many more are

emotionally violent. Some will attack people around you or close to

you, while others may attack you, their host. Thoughts and feelings

you have about your life then become deeply negative and self-

destructive. Illnesses and accidents are often created in this way.

Some pain-bodies drive their hosts to suicide.

When you thought you knew a person and then you are suddenly

confronted with this alien, nasty creature for the first time, you are in

for quite a shock. However, it’s more important to observe it in

yourself than in someone else. Watch out for any sign of unhappiness

in yourself, in whatever form — it may be the awakening pain-body.

This can take the form of irritation, impatience, a somber mood, a

desire to hurt, anger, rage, depression, a need to have some drama in

your relationship, and so on. Catch it the moment it awakens from its

dormant state.

The pain-body wants to survive, just like every other entity in

existence, and it can only survive if it gets you to unconsciously

identify with it. It can then rise up, take you over, “become you,” and

live through you. It needs to get its “food” through you. It will feed on

any experience that resonates with its own kind of energy, anything

that creates further pain in whatever form: anger, destructiveness,

hatred, grief, emotional drama, violence, and even illness. So the

pain-body, when it has taken you over, will create a situation in your

life that reflects back its own energy frequency for it to feed on. Pain

can only feed on pain. Pain cannot feed on joy. It finds it quite

indigestible.

Once the pain-body has taken you over, you want more pain. You

become a victim or a perpetrator. You want to inflict pain, or you

want to suffer pain, or both. There isn’t really much difference

between the two. You are not conscious of this, of course, and will

vehemently claim that you do not want pain. But look closely and you

will find that your thinking and behavior are designed to keep the pain

going, for yourself and others. If you were truly conscious of it, the

pattern would dissolve, for to want more pain is insanity, and nobody

is consciously insane.

The pain-body, which is the dark shadow cast by the ego, is actually

afraid of the light of your consciousness. It is afraid of being found

out. Its survival depends on your unconscious identification with it, as

well as on your unconscious fear of facing the pain that lives in you.

But if you don’t face it, if you don’t bring the light of your

consciousness into the pain, you will be forced to relive it again and

again. The pain-body may seem to you like a dangerous monster that

you cannot bear to look at, but I assure you that it is an insubstantial

phantom that cannot prevail against the power of your presence.

Some spiritual teachings state that all pain is ultimately an illusion,

and this is true. The question is: Is it true for you? A mere belief

doesn’t make it true. Do you want to experience pain for the rest of

your life and keep saying that it is an illusion? Does that free you from

the pain? What we are concerned with here is how you can realize

this truth — that is, make it real in your own experience.

So the pain-body doesn’t want you to observe it directly and see it for

what it is. The moment you observe it, feel its energy field within you,

and take your attention into it, the identification is broken. A higher

dimension of consciousness has come in. I call it presence. You are

now the witness or the watcher of the pain-body. This means that it

cannot use you anymore by pretending to be you, and it can no longer

replenish itself through you. You have found your own innermost

strength. You have accessed the power of Now.

What happens to the pain-body when we become conscious enough

to break our identification with it?

Unconsciousness creates it; consciousness transmutes it into itself. St.

Paul expressed this universal principle beautifully: “Everything is

shown up by being exposed to the light, and whatever is exposed to

the light itself becomes light.” Just as you cannot fight the darkness,

you cannot fight the pain-body. Trying to do so would create inner

conflict and thus further pain. Watching it is enough. Watching it

implies accepting it as part of what is at that moment.

The pain-body consists of trapped life-energy that has split off from

your total energy field and has temporarily become autonomous

through the unnatural process of mind identification. It has turned in

on itself and become anti-life, like an animal trying to devour its own

tail. Why do you think our civilization has become so life-destructive?

But even the life-destructive forces are still life-energy.

When you start to disidentify and become the watcher, the pain-body

will continue to operate for a while and will try to trick you into

identifying with it again. Although you are no longer energizing it

through your identification, it has a certain momentum, just like a

spinning wheel that will keep turning for a while even when it is no

longer being propelled. At this stage, it may also create physical

aches and pains in different parts of the body, but they won’t last.

Stay present, stay conscious. Be the ever-alert guardian of your inner

space. You need to be present enough to be able to watch the pain-

body directly and feel its energy. It then cannot control your thinking.

The moment your thinking is aligned with the energy field of the pain-

body, you are identified with it and again feeding it with your

thoughts.

For example, if anger is the predominant energy vibration of the pain-

body and you think angry thoughts, dwelling on what someone did to

you or what you are going to do to him or her, then you have become

unconscious, and the pain-body has become “you.” Where there is

anger, there is always pain underneath. Or when a dark mood comes

upon you and you start getting into a negative mind-pattern and

thinking how dreadful your life is, your thinking has become aligned

with the pain-body, and you have become unconscious and vulnerable

to the pain-body’s attack. “Unconscious,” the way that I use the word

here, means to be identified with some mental or emotional pattern.

It implies a complete absence of the watcher.

Sustained conscious attention severs the link between the pain-body

and your thought processes and brings about the process of

transmutation. It is as if the pain becomes fuel for the flame of your

consciousness, which then burns more brightly as a result. This is the

esoteric meaning of the ancient art of alchemy: the transmutation of

base metal into gold, of suffering into consciousness. The split within

is healed, and you become whole again. Your responsibility then is

not to create further pain.

Let me summarize the process. Focus attention on the feeling inside

you. Know that it is the pain-body. Accept that it is there. Don’t think

about it — don’t let the feeling turn into thinking. Don’t judge or

analyze. Don’t make an identity for yourself out of it. Stay present,

and continue to be the observer of what is happening inside you.

Become aware not only of the emotional pain but also of “the one

who observes,” the silent watcher. This is the power of the Now, the

power of your own conscious presence. Then see what happens.

 

For many women, the pain-body awakens particularly at the time

preceding the menstrual flow. I will talk about this and the reason for

it in more detail later. Right now, let me just say this: If you are able

to stay alert and present at that time and watch whatever you feel

within, rather than be taken over by it, it affords an opportunity for

the most powerful spiritual practice, and a rapid transmutation of all

past pain becomes possible.