Question: I would like to know if there is a point after pain? We live in pain, but then do you believe that there is a point beyond pain?

Sri Chinmoy: As long as we are in the physical, if our consciousness is all the time in the physical, certainly there is pain. But if we can withdraw our consciousness from the physical, then there can be no pain. Many spiritual figures have done it. They are undergoing a major operation, even without anaesthetic. Then what do they do? They put their conscious force on that particular place and then they smile. They smile while the operation is going on. I remember one such incident. A girl cousin of mine went with one of her friends to the doctor. My cousin was undergoing an operation, a tremendous one. When the doctor started operating, she looked at the doctor and started smiling, but her friend, who was supposed to help her if she was crying, fell down on the floor and fainted. The actual person who was undergoing the operation started smiling! And I have seen quite a few times that the doctors in India do not use chloroform or ether.

Once I had three big boils here and the pain was unbearable when I went to the doctor. I raised my hand; the nurse was holding my wrist and I was looking at the doctor, smiling. Before the actual operation took place, for ten minutes I was concentrating. When the doctor was operating, I was looking at him, smiling.

There is another way to overcome pain. If you can consciously enter into the pain itself and stay in the pain for a few minutes, then the pain does not torture you as pain. For when we become the possessors of the pain, we can transform this very pain into joy. When you enter into the pain, you become the possessor of the pain. Right now, the pain possesses you; you are a victim of the pain and it keeps torturing you. But if you can possess the pain, you can actually inject into that area anything that you want. With your conscious power, you can inject delight, joy, whatever you want. It is quite possible and practicable. Many people have done it and the doctors have admired it. If you want to inject joy into the pain, you can feel it in that very spot.

Then, of course, if we can separate ourselves from the body-consciousness, it becomes easy. Ramana Maharshi suffered from a cancerous tumour. He used to laugh and say, “That gentleman has now come.” “That gentleman” referred to the pain and he mocked it. Pain can easily be transformed into joy if we consciously enter into the pain or if we separate our body-consciousness from the pain itself. In two possible ways it can be done. Either you can enter into it and possess it and when it is possessed, you can give it your own joy. Or you can separate your body-consciousness from the pain itself. These are two possible ways.