Here are some thoughts on pain and belief systems.

Date:   4/3/2006 7:14:52 AM ( 18 y ago)

Escape From Darkness

by MSI


Everything here is everywhere;
What is not here is nowhere at all.


This world is subject to manifold uncertainties. Making the human body
secure is difficult or impossible. If it is not fed regularly, it
starves. If it is not protected from the elements, it becomes ill or dies.
It is subject to accidents: it can easily be crushed, broken, burned.
There appears to be little or no possibility of living much beyond the
century mark.

Financial security is a chimera, shaky in the best of times. At any
moment, the meaning and structure of our lives can be shaken to the core
by death or illness of a loved one. This life is fundamentally
uncertain. Even the most expensive defensive armaments can be surmounted,
subverted, destroyed.

Given these obvious facts, what choice is there other than impotent
frustration or despair? We shake our fist in rage at the cruel, judgmental
God who created this horribly painful world. Joy is fleeting at best --
a stolen kiss, then the darkness and isolation of permanent loneliness
or the dullness of blind, mindless fog. How many of us have chosen to
eclipse our subtle perceptions to avoid seeing the ugly reality of
Earth? How many of us dull our outraged senses with movies, television,
videos, work, drugs, alcohol, or a countless series of other anodynes to
still our pained and outraged sensibilities?


How Many Of Us Have Ever Dared Question Why?

How many of us have ever dared question why? And for the rare seeker of
Ultimate Knowledge, has not the result more often than not been the
discovery that life is essentially meaningless? Is it a pointless drama
created by a mad God? Or is it perhaps a random result of biochemical
processes, inevitable somewhere, sometime in a nearly Infinite Universe?
How often does the seeker despair of independent discovery and adopt
belief systems of others, be they religious, philosophical or scientific?
Where is one who has succeeded in knowing the True Self, the Inner
Controller, the Divine Mind?

Our senses lie to us. Our thought systems structured by sensory
experience, logic or belief are necessarily flawed if we take as premise
anything we perceive as ultimately real. Life is not the result of a
consensus of opinion. It is not dependent on our sensory experience, our
rational thought or on our beliefs.

Our senses lie to us. Every day we see the Sun rising in the East,
setting in the West. This was incontrovertible fact for countless millennia
to the vast majority of humanity. The Sun circled the flat Earth.
Everybody knew that. But the perception was false; the logical and
scientific systems based on the observations were flawed; the religious and
philosophical systems based on this common daily experience were in error.

Our senses lie to us. For centuries, the indivisible nature of matter
was accepted as gospel. But what rational mind today doubts that matter
is only congealed energy? Most of that which we consider solid is
99.9999% empty space! Take an atom and expand it to the size of the
Louisiana Super Dome and where is the matter? A tiny beebee sized lump in the
center is the nucleus, containing the protons and neutrons; a few
infinitesimal ghosts flitter around the outer bleachers, these are the
electrons; all the rest is empty space. Where is the solid matter?

Our senses lie to us. What we have come to believe, based on our
experiences, may not necessarily be true. Our knowledge of the world is
changing at an ever-accelerating rate. That which was certain fact yesterday
is today questioned and may be refuted tomorrow. The sum total of human
knowledge is doubling every two years. Who is abreast of its
discoveries? Who, indeed even can be abreast of its discoveries?

It is common today to view our scientific achievements with pride; some
of us therefore feel contempt for the woefully ignorant philosophical
and religious systems of previous generations. This is human nature. But
it is just another level of ignorance.

For one brief moment, imagine that everything you now believe about the
human condition and the world around you is wrong. Imagine every
conclusion you have ever made is false, that you have been and are dreaming.

Imagine no one you know has ever died, that it was all a magical drama
created just for you. Imagine no one has even ever been ill, that no
one has suffered in any way. Imagine the memories you have of your own
pain are false, that you have never and never can suffer in any way, that
you have simply been asleep and dreaming strange fantasies.

A peculiar thought? Astounding in the extreme? You strongly maintain
you know many who have suffered intensely and died? You yourself may have
certain chronic ailments or several self-destructive habits; you
yourself have experienced losses, disappointments, injuries -- these are the
irrefutable facts of your life. So how can I ask you even to imagine
such a flawless world? A world without pain, suffering, loss of any kind?

Perhaps such a place was possible in the far distant past or will be in
some obscure future, but it is certainly not here and now. Or perhaps
in a distant star system, a highly fortunate race has developed such a
state of perfection, through intense scientific or spiritual
development. Perhaps technology may one day eliminate all human suffering.

Or maybe it will never happen on the Earth, maybe such a state will
forever be reserved for the blessed ones in Heaven who, after death, have
been judged worthy of Eternal Life. Perhaps then the Omnipotent Healing
Strength of the Divine Hands will lovingly brush away all our tears and
we will be reborn in the perfection and dazzling radiance of our own
released Ascendant beauty.

But surely not here. Surely not now. It is impossible, illogical, and
refuted by every scrap of evidence that our belief systems and memories
and perceptions provide.

But again I say, what if?

What if all the suffering you and others experienced was a cunning lie,
an illusion created by a belief in separation from your own perfected
Self? What happens to the pain in the dream when you wake up? If it had
been a particularly painful dream, you might give a little shudder of
relief that it was all, after all, only a series of hallucinations. And
then, thankful to be free from the terror, your racing heart stills as
you continue joyfully on with your everyday life.


What Is Pain, After All?

Let us be bold for just a moment longer and take this experiment one
step further. Think of a past pain. It can be as large as you like. A
severe burn. A broken arm or leg. Some disease that afflicted you. The
death of a close one. Anything at all. Pick something that still hurts.
Something that is still deep and painful. The betrayal by him/her whom
you loved/trusted the most in all the world. The Holocaust. Viet Nam.

Pick this old-new pain and feel it now. What is that pain? What exactly
is it? What does it feel like? What is pain? Can you describe it to
yourself?

If you were to jab yourself with a pin just now, what would you feel?
Your senses would relay a message to your brain through the wonderful
electrical and chemical mechanics of your nervous system; these messages
you would interpret to say, "Ouch!" And everybody knows exactly how
that feels -- we have all had such experiences, we all have had such
shared perceptions. But what is pain? What exactly is it? If you wish to be
free from suffering permanently, this warrants investigation.

There is another way to view the world, based neither on intellectual
enquiry nor belief but on direct experience. If you were happy before
the pinprick -- if you just received a long-desired promotion or just
discovered an ideal girlfriend or boyfriend, or just received an "A" in a
difficult class -- you will still feel the pin, but the pain will seem
much less important. If, on the other hand, you just got fired, broke
up with your fiancée, flunked algebra, the jab from the pin will feel
much worse. You might wonder in response to the prick why God created
such a miserable world. You might curse your fate. You might kick your
dog or slam your dinner down on the table or just scream your anger and
frustration to the uncaring world.


Let's Imagine A Foot-Race

Suppose you are running a foot-race, say a ten kilometer race, for
which you have trained for a long time. You are about to win when another
competitor comes up from behind you and trips you; you fall down
together and both lose. How will you feel about this? If you are like most of
us, you will probably be extremely angry.

But suppose he did not trip you intentionally but was at the time
suffering a severe myocardial infarction -- he was having a massive heart
attack. What happens to your anger now? Is it not replaced by pity or
sadness for the poor unfortunate fellow? The same event has now been
interpreted completely differently, with vastly different effects on your
moods and feelings.

Now suppose you learn he had the heart attack because he had been
taking illegal drugs so he could win the race. Once again, your feelings
transform, spiralling again into anger, with a strong touch of judgment
and condemnation thrown in to salt the feeling. "He deserved to die!" you
think, happy for his demise. Or perhaps you still feel some pity for
him, thinking it sad that he wanted to win so badly. And you offer this
to yourself as proof that moral behavior is rewarded.

But next you discover that he was a foreign national and his wife,
parents and children were being held prisoner by the dictator of his
country; further this dictator had told him that if he won the race, his
family would be freed, but if he lost, they would be executed slowly and
painfully. Now what happens to your feelings? Where did the anger go?
Maybe it transfers to anger toward the dictator or toward politics or
toward God for making such a senseless, cruel world. But what of your anger
for the poor dead athlete? Who could condemn him now?


 

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