FREEDOM FROM SUFFERING
As seekers, we should constantly remind ourselves of the basic realities of our existence. If this is not possible, we should do so at least on those occasions when we are besieged by lack of clarity and confusion. Much of this confusion rises from our assumptions, accumulated knowledge and the views of others. These are obviously in the realm of thoughts. These are not the basic realities themselves. Releasing ourselves from thoughts about them is the first step, and perhaps the last step, we need to take to arrive in the realm of Truth.
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Nisargadatta Maharaj once said, “Pain is physical. Suffering is mental. Pain is thus, unavoidable. But suffering is always avoidable!” To understand this profound statement is to understand the basic realities of our existence as they relate to our body and mind.
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For instance, take the lives of sages and saints like Jesus Christ and Bhagavan. Both their bodies experienced intense pain caused by untold tortures. For Jesus, it was through being nailed on the cross. For Bhagavan, it was through the most painful form of cancer, osteo sarcoma. Both died or had to drop their bodies due to these cruel inflictions. This is recorded history. But did either Jesus Christ or Bhagavan suffer at all during those three days and fourteen months? Most assuredly they did not. They themselves asserted as much.
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What is suffering? It is a deep mental reaction to physical pain. Once Major Chadwick asked Bhagavan, “Bhagavan, last night when I was going around your room, I heard you make moaning sounds like ‘aah, hoon’. But, people say you have no pain. Which is true?” Bhagavan replied, “Yes, the body has pain and it makes sounds. But what I have got to do with it? Am I the body? Is there any suffering at all?” If we ponder over this revealing reply of Bhagavan, it will clarify Maharaj’s profound statement. For both Jesus Christ and Bhagavan, there was no mental recording of any form of pain as suffering.
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One has a body which can be seen. But has anyone ever seen the mind? The mind is a phantom. When questioned, it disappears. Thus, the mind itself being non–existent, all its derivations are equally untrue and unreal. Pain is a physical reality. Suffering is a superimposition and hence, unreal. All forms of suffering dissolve and disappear when one gets rooted in the ‘I, I’, the inner silence, through the quest ‘Who am I?’
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So, though pain and body are there, suffering and mind are not there. The body is inert. It doesn’t say there is suffering. It is the phantom mind which subjects one to the idea of suffering by saying, “I suffer from pain”. Dislodge the mind and there is no more suffering.
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