When it comes to psychological and spiritual pain, it appears in many different forms. Anger, fear, depression, loneliness, regret, guilt, unrequited love… the list goes on and on.
When we’re overcome by these emotions, we’re usually quick to blame someone or something for the pain we feel. But does that ever help? It seems the pain just gets worse. We may keep finding new explanations for it, but does that ever make a lasting difference in our level of pain? We keep getting caught up again and again in its vicious cycle.
But if we look at what the great sages tell us about pain, they point to a new way of understanding and responding to it. Here are some examples:
If you could see things as they are, not as they appear, you would no longer inflict injuries and pains on your own selves. — Buddhism (circa 500 B.C.E.)
If you are pained by any external thing, it is not this thing that disturbs you, but your own judgment about it. It is in your power to erase this judgment now. If anything in your own nature gives you pain, who hinders you from correcting your opinion? — Marcus Aurelius (121 – 180)
The violence that others do to us is often less painful than violence we do to ourselves. — Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613 – 1680)
Whether we are in a pleasant or a painful state depends, finally, upon the kind of matter that pervades and engrosses our consciousness. — Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 – 1860)
Pain is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world. — C. S. Lewis (1898 – 1963)
And now, here’s one from OneJourney founder Guy Finley:
The real crisis is (in) our present level of consciousness, and not in the conditions that serve to reveal it (to us). — Guy Finley (1949)
In every case we’re told the better way to approach our pain is to understand the important role our own consciousness plays in causing and amplifying our suffering. If we’re willing to accept the truth of that, then the next step is to learn how to use that understanding to change our relationship with pain. And we can find an important clue in achieving that in this next quote from Guy:
The gradual realization that you’re engaged in a conversation with a level of mind that’s set against itself… is the same as being released from its pain.
He’s telling us that understanding the whole mechanism of how the mind works and how we interact with it can help us begin to disentangle ourselves from the source of our inner torment.
If this new way of approaching pain intrigues you, and you wish to discover more about how to incorporate this wisdom into your own life, here is information about an upcoming series of talks by Guy that can help.
Learn How to Use Pain So That You Never Suffer From it the Same Way Again During Guy’s Series of Free Livestreamed Talks
Everything in the universe has a meaning and a value, and that’s true for pain as well. For the alert student of the inner-life, it can be a gift — a message from above to show us where we’ve been hurting ourselves, causing our own difficulties, and multiplying the pain we feel over events that never had to be so bad.
Guy presents life-changing information on how to have a new relationship with pain in his ongoing series of talks on Letting Go with Guy Finley. These talks are livestreamed free from Life of Learning Foundation, and are held every Sunday morning at 9:30 AM Pacific Time, and every Wednesday evening at 6:00 PM Pacific.
Each session lasts about an hour and a half and includes an open Q&A period. You can pre-register for all of Guy’s livestreams at www.guyfinley.org/freeclass and you will be sent a reminder email with the link right before each talk. If you are unable to attend in real time, a replay is posted soon after the end of each class.
During our time together, Guy will be our guide on the journey beyond pain (as we presently understand it) to this New World. And we will stop at a number of mileposts along the way.
Here’s a taste of some of the new vistas that will open before us:
- In our sincere wish and action to enter the healing Light of the Divine we will make a miraculous discovery about the one place where it can be found
- We will be given the key to understanding why we need never fear the sting of death
- We’ll come to understand the crucial role of resistance in leading us to our ultimate transformation
- We’ll learn surprising facts about how to use the “flames” of resistance to find freedom from their illusory nature
These classes will give us new eyes with which to see ourselves, our true purpose, and the real meaning of pain and how to use it. You’ll come away with new understanding of the beautiful truth that everything we think happens to us is in fact happening for us.
All of us here at Life of Learning are looking forward to seeing you online. I hope you will be able to join us during these live events, or through the replays, so that you can gain new understanding that allows you to use your pain to deepen your relationship with the Divine and never suffer in the same way again.
Best wishes,
Dr. Ellen Dickstein
The OneJourney Project
