Question: Does God feel physical pain?

Sri Chinmoy: Definitely. Although He is above and beyond the physical, He feels physical pain, for He has become one with the physical. He is in the physical, He is in the subtle, He is everywhere. If He lives in the physical, then naturally He feels pain. People thought that the plant did not have any feelings. Now scientists have discovered feelings in the plant and they can even show how the plants quarrel and fight as we do. So naturally God is there. When we attack someone on the physical plane, we suffer; and because He is within our suffering, God suffers. But at the same time, He is beyond our suffering. For us it is not like that. Each time we get a blow, we stay in the suffering. But in God's case, he is inside the house and He can come out of the house at any time. He knows how to open the door. But we are like children: we don't know how to open the door and we don't know how to close the door. God is like the elderly person who escapes with His wisdom. If He does not want to use His wisdom, he can stay and play with us and He can be bound. The moment He enters into us and enjoys our game, He enters into our ignorance, although He has the capacity to come out at any moment.

God feels physical pain as you do. To be very frank, God feels pain much more than we do because He identifies with our physical, vital, mental, our entire being. This is God in His human aspect. In this personal aspect He suffers from our pain. He enjoys everything that we do in our own way. He is in our life of pleasure. He is in our life of limitation and imperfection. The personal God suffers and becomes everything in life.

But God in His impersonal aspect does not feel anything. He is not at all attached to our suffering. He only transforms and liberates us with the conscious awareness and assistance of the personal. Without the assistance of the personal God, humans would not make any satisfactory progress on earth.

We have to consciously cooperate with the divine dispensation, with the human God. God takes the help of certain human beings so that He can transform the human into the divine. As long as He remains in human beings and identifies Himself with the human, He does feel pain as you do, infinitely more than you do.

From:Sri Chinmoy,God the Supreme Humourist, part 1, Vishma Press, New York, 1974
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