On YouTube
How NOT to Suffer While In Pain
341.7K views
4 years ago
Pain
Suffering
Resistance
Acceptance
Human Condition
Delight
Life
Description

Acharya Prashant explains that you were not born a human being to live painlessly. To be born is to be born in pain, and the very concept that life can be painless is false. Pain is a due and legitimate part of existence that you cannot avoid. The call is to live through it like a man, to play through pain, and to just keep playing. In essence, pain is life. One must keep bearing it because it cannot be avoided. The speaker distinguishes between pain and suffering. Suffering arises when you resist pain—when you shout, throw your hands about, stamp your feet, and complain like a petulant child. The advice is to stop resisting the pain and instead bear it gracefully. If you live beautifully in pain, you will not suffer. One must welcome pain, as there is no other option, and live through it as champions do. If you can embrace pain, then pain becomes your beloved. Conversely, if you do not turn pain into your beloved, your punishment will be that your beloved will become the pain. The central message is not to resist. You are not born a deity or an angel; you are born a human being, so you should lower your expectations. Life is suffering because humans are designed not only to have pain but also to resist it, which is described as a "double whammy." This combination of having pain and resisting it is what is called suffering. The speaker suggests having pain and, through it, gaining a lot of depth in your being—so much depth that it can take in all the pain. By continually soaking in pain, a strange thing happens: you can rejoice because you are no longer "really human." Had you been human, you would have resisted pain. When you don't resist pain, you are no more human, and you will not suffer as humans do. Instead, you are blessed with delight. This delight is not available to so-called normal humans because they are always rushing after it by trying to avoid or resist pain. If you resist pain, all you get is suffering. If you embrace pain, then there is delight. If you can smile through tears and in tears, that is a beautiful smile.