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.