These satsangs are unlisted on Youtube - meant for the 6 months course students who have questions after listening to the talks. In this blog we see Swamiji's answering questions on pain and suffering.
Q. What is the difference between emotional pain and
suffering?
A. Excellent question. In the in the videos you watched, I
made the point that Vedanta frees you from suffering. Vedanta cannot free you
from physical pain or emotional pain. As long as you have a body, you will be
subject to physical pain. As long as you have a mind, a heart, you will be
subject to emotional pain. Can you imagine if someone is enlightened, does it
mean if you pinch the person, they won't feel pain? Silly. Okay. So we
understand you become free from suffering through gaining enlightenment through
the discovery of your true nature as pure consciousness. So in this context, the
questioner asks what's the difference between emotional pain and suffering?
Emotional pain is… just let me try maybe try to explain it
with a with an example. Suppose you lose a loved one. We've all been through
that of course. When you lose a loved one, you feel tremendous grief.
Emptiness. That grief, that emptiness, that sense of loss is emotional pain.
What is suffering, however, is completely different. When
you lose a loved one and then you say, why did that person have to die? Why did
God let that person die? How can I go on living without that person? Oh my
gosh, this is horrible. This is terrible.
What I've just described is an example of suffering. To go
back to those videos, I've said pain, physical pain, emotional pain is what
you experience. Suffering is your negative response to that pain. It's possible
to lose a loved one, to experience that grief, that sense of loss without the
emotional pain.
I think in one of the videos I gave the example of my own
guru having lost a close friend and experiencing the pain of loss without any
suffering. Here's an even better metaphor. We all know what it is to be sad and
to suffer as a result of sadness. But look at this… when you go to a really sad
movie, you cry. You may cry. You certainly feel sad. But look at that. The
sadness you feel in the movie and the sadness you feel in real life, it's the
same sadness. It feels the same.
Well, then what's the difference? You actually enjoy the
sadness in the movie theater and at home that sadness makes you feel horrible.
Why? In the movie theater, you don't have all that negative reaction to
sadness. It's an emotion and you even enjoy that emotion in the movie theater. But
at home (meaning your own sadness), you feel threatened by that feeling of
sadness. You feel that that sadness robs you of peace and contentment which
is a false conclusion. These teachings are strong enough to get rid of that
false conclusion so that even at home you can experience sadness without being
threatened by that feeling of sadness.
Why should we be
threatened by our emotions? Normal human emotions. We shouldn't be threatened
by them.
Q. In many lectures we hear that atma is not
affected by pain. In theory it sounds great but the physical body does
experience pain and is hard to ignore
That atma is not affected by pain, that's a correct
statement but I'd like to refine that statement. Atma is not affected by pain
is a philosophical statement. Something called atma is not affected by pain.
And as we made it very clear this is not a philosophical discussion we're
engaged in. It's a spiritual pursuit we're engaged in. So instead of saying
that atma is not affected by pain really I am not affected by pain. My essential
nature as pure consciousness is not affected by pain. In making this kind of shift
of our perspective then we avoid letting this fall into a philosophical
discussion.
Then the questioner goes on to ask in theory it sounds great
but the physical body does experience pain and is hard to ignore. Wait a
minute. Your body doesn't experience pain. You experience pain. The pain
may originate in your body. The pain may originate in your mind and your
emotions. But you experience that pain. Not your body.
And then she goes on to say because we are not enlightened,
we experience that pain. So how do we understand and overcome the pain that our
physical body feels again?
Your body doesn't feel anything. You feel pain. And how do
you overcome that pain? You don't. And as long as you have a physical body,
you're going to experience pain. As long as you have emotions, you're going to
experience emotional pain. So what you overcome is not pain. What you
overcome is suffering.
As long as you're alive, you will experience pain, but
you need not experience suffering. And that's the goal of it.
Q. I have a question regarding the statement pain is
inevitable, suffering is optional.
A. I presume I made that statement in one of the
videos. The questioner says I accept that
suffering depends on our response to pain.
Perfect. Suffering is your negative response to pain when you feel threatened by pain. That response is suffering. And the question is, can we really choose a response to pain? If suffering is your response to pain, can you choose not to suffer? Suffering is not a matter of choice. Actions are a matter of choice. You can choose to stand up. You can choose to sit down. But you can't choose whether or not to suffer. Freedom from suffering is not a matter of choice. It's a matter of understanding. In particular, it's a matter of discovering your true essential nature to be pure consciousness -pure consciousness
