Why Pain? Part 3

The Escape

We tend to think of pain and illusion as something to overcome, to escape. That if we get to the bottom of it, it will finally be over. But this outlook arises from the ego’s making it wrong. As soon as we make it wrong, we are back inside the story.

Karma has brought us into form. Thus, as long as we’re in form, the form is subject to the laws of action. The body and heart are subject to pain. The mind is subject to misunderstanding.

Clearly, this is an example of how you can’t solve the problem on the level of the problem. You cannot avoid pain and mistake. But you can transcend it.

When you discover your true nature, you find that you are not the body feeling pain. You are not the broken heart. You are not the confused mind. You are that which is having the experiences.

If you can simply be the experiencer, then you are no longer caught in the experience. You simply observe. Action, pain and thoughts arise in themselves and have no bearing on who you are. From there you can learn to not judge but to allow. To recognize you are here to have some experiences. If you step into that space of the experiencer, you are no longer the experience. Pain is there, but it is an experience. It is not Me who is in pain, it is just pain.

As the experience deepens and you step into love, you find that all experience is just the movement of love within itself, even pain. It does not overshadow but simply crosses the screen of consciousness.

The way out is within.

Layers

We can understand this more deeply taking another approach. We tend to think there are a bunch of me’s interacting in a random physical world. But this is only the most superficial level.

Reality is an infinite field of silent presence. Everything happens within that. Presence has a quality of being lively alertness. When this alertness focuses on a point, form arises. Intention is another name for this focus. Everything arises this way, including you. You are a point of alertness, observing other points of alertness. That point we could call the soul and it goes on to have a series of experiences through many variations in form.  There are a lot of points.

We can see three layers to this. The point. The other points, our environment. And the awareness in which all points exist.

As your point is simply focused infinity, it has the same qualities as its source. You are in effect a mini-creator. Thus you create a mini-creation, your world. Peter Russell explores this over on The Primacy of Consciousness.

This mini-creation is our image or story, playing out on the screen of our mind. That mind sits in a larger group mind that interacts with other stories to create  semi-overlapping realities. Thus while our realities share certain features with the group, how we perceive and respond to that varies widely. (of course, this is just an identification effect. There really is only one mind)

While we may share a general reality, our personal one is quite unique. And it is not limited to the body but extends into our entire perceptual and memory range. Where we store or hold our resistance is across our entire experience, not just internally.

The group is configured in a number of ways, also in layers. Our company. Or social community. Those that identify with the city, their province, their country. We may identify ourselves by race, religion, affiliation, sex… all those things they try to enshrine in statements of rights.

Because of as above, so below, the layers tend to be mirrors or copies of more subtle values. Thus, the dynamics tend to repeat in different layers, but shift their qualities. As you uncover the deeper layers, it can seem more of the same but it is something new, deeper.

I’ve been surprised how deep the story runs. When you realize that your physical existence is a result of the story, your relationship with it begins to change. You reach a place of much deeper acceptance and surrender. Of being OK with what is.

We see that the awakening journey is not one to end the story but rather becoming conscious of it’s true nature and transcending it. Or rather, transcend it and thus make it conscious. We could say it’s the structure into which our Prarabdha (active) karma is poured. The underlying mesh.

Through the journey, we let go of our attachment to the story and many of the resulting dramas. This makes life much smoother and we can begin to step back into the flow of life.

Purpose

Because you are initiated by the divine, hidden in your story is your purpose. You’ve been telling it since you were born. When you can uncover the mask of your drama and pain, you will find the soul and purpose remain.

An image remains, but it is an intention, it is transparent and seemless. It is the divine structure into which life flows. When the resistance falls away, the flow is restored and a sense of personal gradually fades. It is that sense of personal or identity that causes much of the pain. Pain from taking it personally.

Our soul and the flow are always in context of the whole. From there, there is no mistake, no friction. Only the divine moving through us.

This is not something we can rush as it has nothing to do with time. It happens when it does by transcendence and grace. By attention and allowing.

May your true raison d’etre shine through you.
Davidya

Part 1
Part 2