• Table of Contents
  • Gods My only Kin by Swami Veda Bharati
  • 30 Years - Himalayan Institute Germany by Wolfgang Bischoff
  • "Something Swamiji Said" by Lalita Arya
  • Pain-Teacher by Veena Haasl-Blilie
  • Marching Onwards by Dian Singh
  • To Give People a Daily Practice by Giancarlo Colombo
  • Surya Namaskar by Lori Beron
  • Biofeedback and Beyond by Daniel Hertz
  • Untying Emotional Knots on the Way to Joy by Randall Krause
  • Self Awareness – The Core of Yoga by Florentina Hausknotz
  • You Should Teach your Children through Example by Swami Rama
  • Swami Veda Recommends Two Books
  • 2013: Are You Coming?
  • 2011 Events and Beyond
  • Full Moon Meditation Dates
  • Location of our SRSG ashram
• AHYMSIN Newsletter Archive

Pain-Teacher

by Veena Haasl-Blilie

Pain-Teacher
Ever-present Guide
Prayer and Perseverance
Surrender and Be

Pain is a Teacher, sometimes a very tough teacher, but without question, an effective one.  Pain is an Ever-present Guide, whether physical, mental, or emotional, minor or major—it offers many lessons--if we are willing to learn from it. Since I had enjoyed good health prior to 2001, I was searching for a theme to what seemed to be random failures of the body. The theme emerged as: Pain as Teacher.

Pain has taught me that it is made up of individual sensations--though it is often experienced as a singular mass of unpleasant, or perhaps unbearable experience. When we lose contact with the individual sensations that make up pain, it becomes unbearable, overwhelming, pain-filled.  When pain is experienced as individual sensations, the sensations break up into more manageable waves.

For me, I have found two main steps in working with pain.

The first step is to Be as fully present to each sensation as possible, to accept it, to pour focus into it--to acknowledge what Is, to not deny pain in any way. This is Be-ing.

The next task is to surf the individual waves of sensation into Stillness. It is surfing of these individual waves that help the unbearable to be endured. Of course, no one wants to be in pain and so it is here, that our preferences of how we think things ought to be, requires release.

The second step is the act of Surrendering. Surrender and Be. In some of the most pain-filled moments, Pain Teacher shows up and teaches to pray from a pool of stillness—to experience Self as not this, not this. (Not the pain, not the body, not the mind.)

Steps one and two are not easy steps to take, but even if the technique is not perfect, suffering can be lessened.
The past several years have been undeniably challenging, unimaginably physically painful, disruptive, frustrating and isolating at times and the gifts within those same subjective experiences are rich beyond description.  As I write this I find a smile spreading across my face. I would not be smiling, nor experiencing the richness, were it not for the teachings and teachers of the Himalayan Tradition and Grace that flows.

May there be some value in reading how a even as a beginning meditator one can decrease the experience of pain through the practical application of meditative technique and often, simultaneously, increase satisfaction and joy on the spiritual journey.

May you surrender and never give up.

Veena
2009