DISSOLVING THE COLLECTIVE FEMALE PAIN-BODY

 

Why is the pain-body more of an obstacle for women?

The pain-body usually has a collective as well as a personal aspect.

The personal aspect is the accumulated residue of emotional pain

suffered in one’s own past. The collective one is the pain accumulated

in the collective human psyche over thousands of years through

disease, torture, war, murder, cruelty, madness, and so on.

Everyone’s personal pain-body also partakes of this collective pain-

body. There are different strands in the collective pain-body. For

example, certain races or countries in which extreme forms of strife

and violence occur have a heavier collective pain-body than others.

Anyone with a strong pain-body and not enough consciousness to

disidentify from it will not only continuously or periodically be forced

to relive their emotional pain but may also easily become either the

perpetrator or the victim of violence, depending on whether their

pain-body is predominantly active or passive. On the other hand, they

may also be potentially closer to enlightenment. This potential isn’t

necessarily realized, of course, but if you are trapped in a nightmare

you will probably be more strongly motivated to awaken than

someone who is just caught in the ups and downs of an ordinary

dream.

Apart from her personal pain-body, every woman has her share in

what could be described as the collective female pain-body — unless

she is fully conscious. This consists of accumulated pain suffered by

women partly through male subjugation of the female, through

slavery, exploitation, rape, childbirth, child loss, and so on, over

thousands of years. The emotional or physical pain that for many

women precedes and coincides with the menstrual flow is the pain-

body in its collective aspect that awakens from its dormancy at that

time, although it can be triggered at other times too. It restricts the

free flow of life energy through the body, of which menstruation is a

physical expression. Let’s dwell on this for a moment and see how it

can become an opportunity for enlightenment.

Often a woman is “taken over” by the pain-body at that time. It has

an extremely powerful energetic charge that can easily pull you into

unconscious identification with it. You are then actively possessed by

an energy field that occupies your inner space and pretends to be you

— but, of course, is not you at all. It speaks through you, acts through

you, thinks through you. It will create negative situations in your life

so that it can feed on the energy. It wants more pain, in whatever

form. I have described this process already. It can be vicious and

destructive. It is pure pain, past pain — and it is not you.

The number of women who are now approaching the fully conscious

state already exceeds that of men and will be growing even faster in

the years to come. Men may catch up with them in the end, but for

some considerable time there will be a gap between the

consciousness of men and that of women. Women are regaining the

function that is their birthright and, therefore, comes to them more

naturally than it does to men: to be a bridge between the manifested

world and the Unmanifested, between physicality and spirit. Your

main task as a woman now is to transmute the pain-body so that it no

longer comes between you and your true self, the essence of who you

are. Of course, you also have to deal with the other obstacle to

enlightenment, which is the thinking mind, but the intense presence

you generate when dealing with the pain-body will also free you from

identification with the mind.

The first thing to remember is this: As long as you make an identity

for yourself out of the pain, you cannot become free of it. As long as

part of your sense of self is invested in your emotional pain, you will

unconsciously resist or sabotage every attempt that you make to heal

that pain. Why? Quite simply because you want to keep yourself

intact, and the pain has become an essential part of you. This is an

unconscious process, and the only way to overcome it is to make it

conscious.

To suddenly see that you are or have been attached to your pain can

be quite a shocking realization. The moment you realize this, you

have broken the attachment. The pain-body is an energy field, almost

like an entity, that has become temporarily lodged in your inner

space. It is life energy that has become trapped, energy that is no

longer flowing. Of course, the pain-body is there because of certain

things that happened in the past. It is the living past in you, and if you

identify with it, you identify with the past. A victim identity is the

belief that the past is more powerful than the present, which is the

opposite of the truth. It is the belief that other people and what they

did to you are responsible for who you are now, for your emotional

pain or your inability to be your true self. The truth is that the only

power there is is contained within this moment: It is the power of

your presence. Once you know that, you also realize that you are

responsible for your inner space now — nobody else is — and that the

past cannot prevail against the power of the Now.

So identification prevents you from dealing with the pain-body. Some

women who are already conscious enough to have relinquished their

victim identity on the personal level are still holding on to a collective

victim identity: “what men did to women.” They are right — and they

are also wrong. They are right inasmuch as the collective female pain-

body is in large part due to male violence inflicted on women and

repression of the female principle throughout the planet over

millennia. They are wrong if they derive a sense of self from this fact

and thereby keep themselves imprisoned in a collective victim

identity. If a woman is still holding on to anger, resentment, or

condemnation, she is holding on to her pain-body. This may give her a

comforting sense of identity, of solidarity with other women, but it is

keeping her in bondage to the past and blocking full access to her

essence and true power. If women exclude themselves from men,

that fosters a sense of separation and therefore a strengthening of

the ego. And the stronger the ego, the more distant you are from your

true nature.

So do not use the pain-body to give you an identity. Use it for

enlightenment instead. Transmute it into consciousness. One of the

best times for this is during menses. I believe that, in the years to

come, many women will enter the fully conscious state during that

time. Usually, it is a time of unconsciousness for many women, as

they are taken over by the collective female pain-body. Once you

have reached a certain level of consciousness, however, you can

reverse this, so instead of becoming unconscious you become more

conscious. I have described the basic process already, but let me take

you through it again, this time with special reference to the collective

female pain-body.

When you know that the menstrual flow is approaching, before you

feel the first signs of what is commonly called premenstrual tension,

the awakening of the collective female pain-body, become very alert

and inhabit your body as fully as possible. When the first sign

appears, you need to be alert enough to “catch” it before it takes you

over. For example, the first sign may be a sudden, strong irritation or

a flash of anger, or it may be a purely physical symptom. Whatever it

is, catch it before it can take over your thinking or behavior. This

simply means putting the spotlight of your attention on it. If it is an

emotion, feel the strong energy charge behind it. Know that it is the

pain-body. At the same time, be the knowing; that is to say, be aware

of your conscious presence and feel its power. Any emotion that you

take your presence into will quickly subside and become transmuted.

If it is a purely physical symptom, the attention that you give it will

prevent it from turning into an emotion or a thought. Then continue to

be alert and wait for the next sign of the pain-body. When it appears,

catch it again in the same way as before.

Later, when the pain-body has fully awakened from its dormant state,

you may experience considerable turbulence in your inner space for a

while, perhaps for several days. Whatever form this takes, stay

present. Give it your complete attention. Watch the turbulence inside

you. Know it is there. Hold the knowing, and be the knowing.

Remember: Do not let the pain-body use your mind and take over

your thinking. Watch it. Feel its energy directly, inside your body. As

you know, full attention means full acceptance.

Through sustained attention and thus acceptance, there comes

transmutation. The pain-body becomes transformed into radiant

consciousness, just as a piece of wood, when placed in or near a fire,

itself is transformed into fire. Menstruation will then become not only

a joyful and fulfilling expression of your womanhood but also a sacred

time of transmutation, when you give birth to a new consciousness.

Your true nature then shines forth, both in its female aspect as the

Goddess and in its transcendental aspect as the divine Being that you

are beyond male and female duality.

If your male partner is conscious enough, he can help you with the

practice I have just described by holding the frequency of intense

presence particularly at this time. If he stays present whenever you

fall back into unconscious identification with the pain-body, which can

and will happen at first, you will be able to quickly rejoin him in that

state. This means that whenever the pain-body temporarily takes

over, whether during menses or at other times, your partner will not

mistake it for who you are. Even if the pain-body attacks him, as it

probably will, he will not react to it as if it were “you,” withdraw, or

put up some kind of defense. He will hold the space of intense

presence. Nothing else is needed for transformation. At other times,

you will be able to do the same for him or help him reclaim

consciousness from the mind by drawing his attention into the here

and now whenever he becomes identified with his thinking.

In this way, a permanent energy field of a pure and high frequency

will arise between you. No illusion, no pain, no conflict, nothing that is

not you, and nothing that is not love can survive in it. This represents

the fulfillment of the divine, transpersonal purpose of your

relationship. It becomes a vortex of consciousness that will draw in

many others.