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.