<>There are situations in which a person is tortured, has an incurable disease that generates suffering or is operated on alive, without anesthesia, for objective reasons. We can even mention here the situation of a woman in the labor of childbirth or the situation of a person to whom the fundamental kundalini energy has awakened.
All these examples are situations that can be characterized by atrocious
suffering.
What can a man do to make suffering easier or very easy to bear?
Surely the solution is not to scream or externalize this suffering (as women are wrongly advised when giving birth).
Whoever is attentive may easily notice that screaming during an intense suffering does not, in fact, ease that suffering. It can, even, intensify it.
Sometimes there is an apparent decrease in suffering due to the focus on the action of screaming, which decreases the focus on pain and, therefore, its perception.
One method is, therefore, to pay attention to something else entirely.
The human psyche works on an interesting principle:
when attention is fixed on an object, that object comes “higher” in our consciousness. Regardless of the object.
This principle, which is a key to operating in many areas, has a certain efficiency in this situation, but a limited one.
Finally, that suffering “ attracts our attention“, thanks to the connection that exists between the Self, the bioenergetic body and the physical body, which does not disappear except in the case of death or anesthesia.
But there is an exception. When this other than the pain we focus on is our own Self.
The real solution is to “withdraw” into our spiritual Heart (a process that is known and cultivated on the Path of the Heart), which will allow us to experience states no matter how intense, be they unpleasant or hated, without being “shaken” by them, without being indifferent, but only without identifying ourselves with them, perceiving them as a detached witness.
Thus, no matter how great the intensity of a feeling is (even if it is a feeling of overwhelming pleasure, as we find in the awakening of kundalini), the centering in the Heart allows us to be in an oasis of tranquility, just like in the eye of a hurricane.
The intensity of living (whether it is pain or pleasure) can, then, increase to infinity, without affecting us at all (provided that we can access a state of centering in the Very Good Self).
An example should be enlightening.
When a worker even uninitiated in the methods of the Heart Way – accidentally strikes his fingers with the hammer, there are four types of reactions:
– he shouts loudly or speaks uncontrollably, struggles or makes gestures that even, he may regret then
– nail the nail further, focusing on what it does, seeking to ignore the pain.
– it suddenly internalizes and silently experiences the pain, retreating more or less “into the Self”
– turn to divine help, if what he has already sought to do with all his powers does not have sufficient efficiency and is overwhelmed.
Only the latest solutions are real and really work.
Notice, therefore, that the last solution is to call on divine help, if we have not been able to achieve with all our skill, a good enough effect.
Why not turn to divine help from the beginning?
We can do this – it is even recommended, but anyway, we owe it to ourselves to do, according to our limited human powers, everything in our power and to let God act where and when he sees fit.
“What is not powerful enough to destroy you, makes you stronger!”
What happens to a man subjected to a heinous suffering, if he can resist in such a situation and does not collapse inside or die?
Well, this is very interesting, because all the experiences of a man or, in other words, all the energies he faces come from the same source – the Supreme Individual Self Atman or our essential I-l, the divine spark in man.
It’s simple, understandable, thinking that, for example, “beauty is in the eyes (actually in the Heart and then in the mind) of the beholder.” So does “ugliness.”
If the intensity of a feeling increases greatly, at the end of it there is the whole soul, all the Self of the one who lives it.
Basically, here is a way, only seemingly simple, to reveal the Self, that is, to obtain the supreme spiritual realization of a man.
It is known in Indian mythology the case of a demon who hated God so intensely and for so long that he eventually became one with God (what all beings who lived in the love of God wanted).
This path is only apparently simple because for this it is necessary to be able to keep in touch with that feeling “without losing our temper”, without it decreasing and without our own inner structure suffering destruction.
This is only possible to achieve for short durations of time without internalization and centering in the Heart.
A man subjected to torture should become a completely spiritually liberated man, but in practice this is not the case. Thus, either that person faints, or he enters an uncontrolled and chaotic mental state (that is, he goes crazy), or the body is affected very quickly enough so that it is no longer possible to live in it.
Anyway, there can be no way, because in the example with the demon we mentioned that he cultivated his hatred for God and intensified it at an enormous and permanent level, and thus ended up in the situation he did not suspect at first – he became one with the object of his aberrant hatred.
<>If a follower of Satanism or a man without spiritual discernment could say that this could be a spiritual path, we tell them that in order to be successful they would have to develop methods of amplifying hatred to macrocosmic intensities, which is what would be an absolutely awkward way to spend your life. In addition, these aspects are only theoretical, but if the one in question, who would like to make such an aberrant experiment, fails to reach the end (which is almost certain), he will only be left with the karmic consequences of such a foolish gesture.
In other words, he will receive back from the Universe the same hatred (according to the divine law of Action and Reaction), which will not help him to have a better concentration and a more pleasant state or happiness at all.
In addition, the light and the nonduial happiness of the Self can be glimpsed in Beauty, in Kindness, in Courage, in Wisdom, but if the one in question will experience only hatred, he will only experience an awkward existence and marked by a strong fall into illusion.
Whatever the situation, the best solution in the case of experiencing a very intense state, be it pleasant or unpleasant, is the relation to the Self, the centering in the Spiritual Heart, which will allow the calm, sovereign experience, unaffected by the pleasant-unpleasant polarity of any state and any intensity, and the calling of divine Grace or free Divine Help, which is offered by God without being, necessarily, paid or equated to something.
Thus, here is a wise and effective practical solution offered by the nondualist perspective of the Way of the Heart.
It has great efficiency, but only if we practice and have the essential ability for any being to access the space of the subtle Heart.
The master does the exercise!
<>Leo Radutz
AdAnima Academic Society
Bucharest, October 2010
