Pain: A phenomenon of the mind

THERE is an interesting incident from my spiritual wandering days that I want to share with you. I was once with some tribal people in Madhya Pradesh. I was living in a small temple in the centre of the village.

Suddenly one day I noticed a pregnant lady entering a small hut. After about half an hour, she came out with a small baby in her hands! No pain, no doctor, no nurse, no medicine, no cries. I was shocked! Of course, I could not ask anything because I did not know their language. After a month, I saw another pregnant lady do the same thing. In half an hour she came out with a baby. I asked the local priest who came to the temple, ‘How does this happen? Don’t they have any pain?’ He asked, ‘Pain? Why pain?’

I was amazed. The very idea that women should have pain at the time of delivery did not exist in their society! Not only that, nobody suffered from gynaecological issues like menopause problems either. I started enquiring about their lifestyle. I understood that in their tradition, they respect women a lot. The moment a girl becomes physically mature, she is acknowledged with respect that she is now qualified to become a mother. People fall at her feet and she touches and heals them!

Just because of this different conditioning, the women don’t suffer the usual pains that women in other cultures do. When you are faced with physical pain, just observe the feeling of pain in that part of your body in a relaxed way. You will see that first, there might be a surge of pain, but soon the pain reduces to a spot and disappears. If we just understand this, we will not resist and suffer the pain — we will cooperate with the natural healing energy of the body.

Once somebody closed the door of the car on my finger. People around me got agitated and ran around to get first aid. I simply told them not to bother. As my finger swelled, I just watched clearly what was happening inside my body. I could feel the energy rushing from my navel centre to my finger. I could clearly see the body intelligence responding to the emergency on its own. It healed on its own.

Your own inner ambulance system is what you call pain! Actually, the body is intelligent enough to allow energy to flow to the part of the body that is asking for energy. But you resist that energy flow by labelling it as ‘pain’. Just allow the energy to flow by infusing full awareness into that part of the body. Just look at the energy flow with curiosity. You will see it heal. Be Blissful!