Nature of pain for the Realized one
Question
Dear Dhananjay,
I recently came across this passage from a disciple of Ramana Maharishi:
"When Milarepa was dying he was asked if he did not feel pain, his agony was so obviously great. No, he replied, but there is pain. Pain was certainly there for the body. If one is identified with the body one feels it and associates oneself with it. But for the Jnani who sees the body always as something apart from himself, pain is only an experience outside his reality.
There is pain but somehow it is not his"
Could you please explain the above? If a yogi is given the option of sitting in a plain room or being thrown into boiling water, will he really be indifferent to the two situations? I know in theory the one who wants is gone in a realized sage, but it is so hard to contemplate.
Second, will a realized sage not have the bodily processes as ordinary humans or aspirants? Nervous system, brain, etc. all recognize pain. So when the yogi's body is put in pain, will he feel it? Or is pain a product of the mind, such that the yogi who dissolves his mind into the almighty will somehow stay painless even when the body is tortured?
Thank you so much
Answer
1. Is the pain felt in a dream real? What is one's reaction when he wakes up and realizes it to be a dream? He laughs in relief and is no longer affected by the dream pain, though he vividly knows all those painful experiences which unfolded just a minute back while dreaming.
So he knows the pain, the horror and the fear which were experienced, yet he is no longer affected, for they are not real. It is outside reality now, for the one who experienced the dream is gone, replaced by the 'Real one' who cannot be touched by the dream after wake up.
Similar is the state of the realized sage. Just as the one dreaming experienced extreme pain then but was untouched by those events after 'wake up' into his reality, the realized sage who has given up the 'I-ness' [Ego] is untouched by pain or pleasure at the sensory or mind level, even if his body and mind (created mind) go through the experience. So it is perceived but not conceived. It is there, it is known, yet it is not there, like the dream pain. You are now a mere witness of these experiences, but not involved. That the body is there, but you are not the body is one of the default states of realization.
2. The bodily processes are all there, but they are at a very high level of energy & vibration. Highly refined and subtle, like light; and there is no sense of ownership, unlike the ignorant one who grieves or gets happy through the senses. So there is no doership as well. It is like being in a sea of blissful light and you are that light yourself. There is no subject or object. Silence.
ॐ तत् सत्
(That Supreme being is the absolute truth)