As human animals we naturally avoid sources of pain. All animals do, as whatever causes pain could threaten survival itself. In that very practical sense, sensing pain is a signal to move away from something. Fire burns, burns hurt, fire can kill you.
Emotional pain hurts deeply too, with many different sources, some minor and some major. We can feel hurt if someone slights us, intentionally or unintentionally; or we can hurt if we lose our job. We can feel the pain of those who are suffering everywhere on the planet; we can hurt when we face our own certain mortality. Emotional pain also can be a practical signal to move away from the source of the pain. In only one example, if someone is emotionally abusing you, the intelligent action is to stop the abuse or to move away from the cause. The complication arises because obviously emotional pain is simply not as clear-cut as physical pain. What if we actually love the source of our emotional pain? What if it is more painful to move away from the source of the pain than to stay and feel it?
And there is the often horrific emotional pain of losing someone altogether, through death or loss of relationship. Ed and Deb Shapiro's excellent blog last week addresses clearly ways in which you can be supported in healing from such devastating events.
There are many support and self-help groups that can assist you with your particular emotionally painful situations whatever the cause. I laud and support the care and help these groups offer.
In addition to supporting you in taking necessary steps to heal from loss or to correct abusive situations, I would like to offer a simple, yet radical, invitation: take a moment, by yourself, without fixing or avoiding the pain, and fully open to it. Allow it totally into your whole being. Give up any story or internal narrative of who's to blame and how it could or should be or have been different. Take an instant to fully surrender inside the pain. A surrender so complete that even the word "pain" is left behind.
When the word is left behind, only an energy field remains. When you are not resisting that energy field, there is an unexpected treasure discovered. In that moment, the pain itself is a conduit to a deeper experience of love and freedom.
The situation that caused the pain may or may not be different (or in the case of death even have the possibility of being different), but the pain of the situation is no longer the problem. Then pain, or what is discovered in the willingness to fully and directly experience the energy field of "pain," is no longer a signal to avoid. It becomes a signal to take a moment and simply be completely present in the depths of your being.
At first this invitation may seem counter-intuitive. There may be a sense that you will be swallowed whole by the immensity of your emotion. Yet if you are willing to let your heart break completely open, with no internal narrative controlling the opening, you will discover the pure, innocent love that is alive in the core of every emotion, every feeling, everybody. It remains pure and spacious regardless of change or loss.
It is discovered freshly each time any hurt is fully and directly met, because it is out of the realm of memory, and with each discovery there is more courage for allowing pain to be an ally rather than an enemy.
If there is any emotional pain (new or old) being avoided by you now, and you accept the invitation to completely open to it, free of the story normally attached to it, what do you discover?
Gangaji will hold her next public meeting in Ashland, Oregon, August 16th. She will be in Boston for a public meeting September 12th, and in Woodstock for a public meeting September 14. She will hold a seven day retreat in Garrison, NY beginning September 16th. Read more about Gangaji's events and catalog of books and videos online.
Follow Gangaji on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Gangaji
A single living cell divides, now there are two,
Beginning of a dream, a thought, there’s me and you.
There is that other cell, you, and here’s me,
My mind, my soul, my space, my place to be.
For you, who think have answers, know it all
Who think, that you are this and that and not a single cell
That “other” cells you own, that they belong to you
Here are the cells, there’s you, what you believe is true.
You think you breath, blink, swallow, even beat your heart
You think, so you’re right in your belief you’re smart,
Not, if you truly did that, you could try to stop
But because your mind is closed and so is your heart
There is no space to enter, no flow, good or bad
The only place your world exists, is only in your head
“There may be more out there”, I say, “just listen, look”
But all you see or hear, you say, is “Gobbledygook”
Stuck in your thoughts of WHAT IS should be, “me”, and “mine”
Off course, whatever you think, you are only right
The choice is yours, if you see darkness or become the light
Until you realize, there’s nothing outside
That everything you are, there is, can only be inside
Until you let Life flow, let yourself receive
There is no peace, there’s nothing Life can give
So there’s your truth, no matter where you go
What closed your mind, is your false self, your ego
It makes you think that you’re alone, apart
It keeps your mind closed and so is your heart.
You ask '...is any emotional pain being avoided by you now,' until I started writing this I would have said, ‘no.’ I am just now seeing that in the over activity of my life there is a subtle avoidance of this huge empty void of death—an avoidance of the intensity of this heartbreak.
When I stop and really open to this, clearly I see that the pain flows through time-the past—the present—and the future—a very long story of my Dad and me or no Dad and just me. When I drop the story completely, I feel the heartbreak as a vast burning—an energy—a breathless infinite Silence.
The pain is still piercingly present, the heartbreak of my Dad's death still very alive, but I am recognizing on an even deeper level that this heartbreak is an opening to the infinite Silence as infinite Silence---no words can describe the peace of this endlessness! Whoa!
I send you deep support, gangaji
After meeting you and your truth, truth, I am sometimes shocked by the comprehensive largeness of my stories! Even the tiny ones can seem to fill all space, can be as if all-blinding, until they are, as you might say, met -- with varying degrees of clarity -- spinning on their own.
Even in telling you this, there is so much story. And, happily, there is not.
Knowing you can't really be missed, I miss you in Los Angeles.
Warmly, your student--
Roger
I had said Good bye and was OK with his passing while I was gone.
I knew that he would have wanted me to follow my heart.
I had given my permission for the people back home to leave the voice mail that most people would not politely leave. (Fallen Leaf was a silent retreat.)
By Tuesday morning, I am crying uncontrollably in satsang. I thought it was the impending loss of my friend. I left to go cry it out. The crying stopped, it wasn't him, it was you.
I found out later that my friend had made a slight recovery.
When I got back after the retreat, I was able to help my frend's family make the decision to move him to hospice care.
He died peacefully early Tuesday morning. I cried all day.
My point is, if you are attracted at all to Gangaji, go and sit with her.
You just might find what you have been looking for.
Om, shanti, shanti, shanti
Great and important blog - I am so happy you have enriched the HP living section
You are one of the most important Spiritual teachers of our time. I hope many people drink from your cup.
You humble me by mentioning our blog
All Love,
Ed
Thinking of you today Gangaji and loving you always.
Love to share!!! jajajaj!!
Thanks looots! Gangaji- love your flavor your company YOUR HEART!!!
now
irrefutable
the proof clear to see
I
am a Failure.
I
the one who has great insights
but cannot see into himself,
I
who understand the deepest truths
but have understood nothing,
I
whose life is so orderly, who is so meticulous, whom everyone praises for his work,
I
the disciplined one, on the straight path, unwavering,
woke up one morning twisted, inside and out.
Gangaji speaks: let it break open!
Trust the Infinite! Don’t try to mend it! Stop!
And then see…
Thank you!
Nope, not even close, Pain from fire beats emotional pain, the way real scars from fire destroy flesh, and emotional scars are a metaphor.