illusions

pain. ouch. how can four little letters convey such emotion.... damn diggity.

there is so many areas that i could attack this concept...explanatorily attack that is. or at least attempt to make sense of what i have come to understand regarding pain.

we have all, in some degree experienced pain. and hurt. and sadness. over a plethora of different things that have happened to us in our lives. i fell prey to the meat grinder, was spit into pieces, and it took years to put myself back together. and when i finally did, i wasn't the same person anymore. the experience had changed me. and it took a while for me to really understand the benefit from the hell on earth i endured.

so what the bleep is pain, and why the bleep do we have to endure it?
the all out balls to the wall no holds bar question.

there are some interesting interpretations of pain, as well as residual pain, which eckart tolle has given a name, pain-bodies.

there are many teaching, expressing that the state of pain is ultimately an illusion. this is so hard to fathom. that those feelings and experiences that i have had, i am sure you have had, were in vain. that those minutes, hours, days, and even years of borderline unbearable pain were avoidable. but, if this is true, even if there is some slight nuance of truth to this, how amazing would that be. if by some shift in conscious awareness, by choosing what it is that we give life to. as we hack and stumble through the dense forests of feelings and sadness, when there is a groomed trail right beside us.

so years ago, post traumatic experience, i wasn't able to find that nice trail to reprieve, and i stumbled along, and i felt heavy and sad. as many of us do, i think. for the longest time, even when i thought that i had surpassed and conquered the monsters of my past, these feelings would rise from time to time. in certain situations. eckart tolle, one of my favorite authors of all time, terms these feelings pain-bodies.

the accumulated pain, he says, is a negative energy field that occupies your body and mind. if you let it. it has two modes of being-dormant and active. extremely depressed people may have an active pain body 100 % of the time. For others, this pain body may surface during intimate relationships or situations linked with past loss or abandonent, physical or emotional hurts, and so on. The active state of pain can be triggered, in other words.

these pain bodies want to survive. but they can only survive if it gets you to unconsciously identify with it. it can then rise up, and take you over. energy speaking, it will come active when you resonate with its own kind of energy... further pain in any form... examples are anger, destructiveness, hatred, grief, emotional drama, violence, and even illness. pain feeding on pain.

this was what was happening to me for a few years after my experiences. i was still identifying with the hurt. my past, in essence, still had control over me.

another way of looking at the pain-body is as a dark shadow cast by the ego. a seperation from our truths. bringing in the light of our consciousness, our presence, light is shed on the disease of past pain and its phantom frailness and its formlessness. in order to shed light on the darkness, facing it full frontal style is in order. seeing it for what it is, observing what it is we are allowing to lurk. bringing attention and presence to the pain and the identification can be broken. calling it out as an imposter by bringing attention to the absurdity of its residual dwelling allows you begin the process of freedom from it.

St Paul
"Everything is shown up by being exposed to the light, and whatever is exposed to the light itself becomes light."

sustained conscious attention severs the link between the pain body and your thought processes and brings about the process of transmutation. (eckart tolle)
transmutation: a theory that holds a person can modify the status or ownership of assets they own from separate property.

eckart tolle has written an entire book about this topic, and it is really food for thought. a different way of looking at ourselves, at rising above disease, and bringing awareness into all that comprises us.

the bible has many beautiful verses on pain and the beauty that we can extract from it. tonight, i will delve into biblical ins and outs interpretations of pain.

i need to get ready for class... have a great day everyone!