Don't Deny Pain

We never want to deny any pain, resistance, or misunderstanding that arises in our spiritual journey—but let’s not marry it. The practice of Kuṇḍalinī Sādhana is, in fact, the consuming and transforming of all energy that is blocked. Although we might want to try just accepting what we see in ourselves, we must be willing to move beyond our mind and emotions. We use our self-reflective capacity to recognize the level of consciousness that’s having a particular experience, and then we reach into a place deeper than that.

When we do this, we create a vacuum that can consume whatever we feel stuck in. Now we don’t have to relate to the pain or find its apparent cause—we simply internalize the energy of that experience and process it through the psychic body. Any block (mental, emotional, or physical) is just energy that is not in motion. We want to free all energy so that it is in motion. By consuming the energy of that block we remove it, and this is what enables us to find a deeper level of consciousness in which the experience is only that of divine light.

People are so concerned about addressing, feeling, and acknowledging their pain! How are you not going to feel your pain? It hurts like hell. But we must ask: what is the true source of this pain? When we inquire in this way, we come to see that the source of all pain is a contracted level of consciousness within us. This is what causes suffering, and if we understand that, we don’t have to dissect it any further. All we need to do is move into a deeper level of consciousness than the level that’s experiencing the suffering. Then, the more superficial level no longer dominates our experience. But because we have deep-seated tensions and patterns, we must do that repeatedly, and that’s why we talk about spiritual “work,” and “discipline.”

Our Capacity for Change

If we didn’t have the self-reflective capacity to know our own experience, we’d have no capacity for change. We’ve already seen the obstruction. Let’s use the very consciousness that saw that particular dynamic to discover a deeper awareness of itself. I’m not suggesting that this is instantaneous. Different levels of pattern take different times to consume. Some patterns take a lifetime or more to consume. But that only happens if we’re living and functioning from a place that’s deeper than the place of suffering.

We may begin by struggling with our life, but at some point we do become aware that although we may still be suffering, we no longer feel the need to fight. We can rest in the stillness of our center despite whatever tornado is whirling in our life. Then, we work to consume the energy of that dynamic. Because of vimarśa—our capacity to recognize and choose our experience—we understand that our pain and suffering exists at the same time that God’s infinite joy is expressing itself. . . in us! So there’s never a denial of anything, but there is the fundamental clarity in spiritual practices that what we really need to do is focus on joy.

As we focus our awareness on joy, the constricting energies of all our limitations, patterns, and karma will be revealed, and must be consumed. We see the warts on our nose, but we no longer dwell on them. We avoid trying to fix the level of consciousness that created the experience in the first place, because that is the level of mind and ego, which will perpetually re-create the same experience in an attempt to sustain itself. This means that everything we experience within our mind and emotions only has the capacity to reinforce that same level of experience. We’re not trying to change the nature of the ego, but we are trying to be free of the level of consciousness that is ego, and from the grip it has on us.

Surrender the Place that Suffers

It’s the illuminating power of Grace that begins to change our individuated experience by revealing our source to us. That light also gives us the capacity of conscious choice—to not only know our state, but to change it. Until that light has been turned on, it’s just dark, and there is no recognition that we’re caught in the tenacious grip of the ego. In our gratitude for this possibility of change, we work to have a different experience, one that is beyond the pain of living trapped in mind and ego.

We always have the choice to keep fighting it out with our suffering or we can surrender the place that suffers. We can sacrifice that level of constricted awareness into the fire of consciousness that will burn all limited perception. Believe me: despite your previous experience, it is possible to have a completely different experience of life. When we simply surrender our suffering it goes away, because we are no longer feeding it, and no longer trying to understand it or its source. Spiritual sādhana is about the transcendence of every level of limited consciousness.

Make the conscious choice to find joy in yourself every moment of every day. If you want to struggle, struggle to do that! Why struggle with something else? We create our own experience, and we recreate it every moment of every day. Liberated individuals experience God re-creating His experience every moment. This is a fundamental foundation for true spiritual practice—the finding of that simple state of joy and holding on to that state, no matter what. That joy is not created by any form nor diminished by any form, unless we allow it to be.