Illusions

I always say that pain is an illusion. If pain is an illusion, then shouldn't happiness be as well? If happiness is an illusion than how does it manifest? We create it. We respond emotionally according to how we were socialized. Our various responses are amusing to me. When some people are happy others would be sad or some other form of negative emotion. The response depends on how the individual percieves the situation to have meaning for them personally. Indifference is where I find my happiness.

Re: Illusions

I don't know about that. Last time I had a tooth cavity, the pain seemed pretty real to me. In fact it was so bad I was totally immobilized in bed.

And as for indifference, as a parent, I find indifference (especially to my children's pain or happiness) impossible.

m

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I don't think pain is an illusion. I think pain is a tool to keep us safe. If you put your hand on a very hot surface and there was no pain you could damage your physical body significantly.

I do think you can control/manage pain.

I made a deal with my body that I would pay attention when I felt pain and in return the pain would not last very long. Sometimes the pain is very intense but it will last a very short time once I have 'seen to' the situation that was causing the pain.

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That's true.

Pain is also a tool that can be used to discipline and control people as in the torture of political prisoners, the slapping around of the children, the emotional abuse of The System.

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Since we mostly seem to agree pain is real, is happiness real too? It seems much more ephemeral than pain. But contentment and joy and peace are also real, and can last longer…

Nicole

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I think when they say that, they are saying that suffering is an illusion.

And I think so often that is true.  Think about the last time that you felt snubbed by someone.  It hurt.  You created an entire story around both the snubbing (alleged snubbing) and what it means to you and about you.  All of the “story” we create is an illusion.  It isn't real.  And we suffer for it.

When I feel insecure and I create suffering from that place…. both the ideology around the insecurity and the results of it are based on an illusion.

When I find myself in pain, physical pain….. I am able to shift that.  What happens with “Phantom pain” on limbs no longer there.  Is it the mind telling us something?  Is it illusion?

I don't pretend to have that answer.  I am certain, though, that the majority of the emotional pain and suffering we go through is started and stopped with our minds.  The illusions we create to justify or explain something often are the things creating the greater pain.

Jill

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I've heard heard it said that things that exist only in our minds are real in their consequences. So while it is certainly true that we create a lot of suffering for ourselves by falling off the path and making drama, it is real suffering, just as real as falling off a mountain path and breaking an arm. We create real suffering for others too when we gossip in the drama, and others become involved.

It's always difficult to speak meaningfully about the deepest truths because what is most real is most elusive and ineffable. What is most real cannot be directly sensed and must be apprehended by the spirit. I think of the Little Prince, or the Velveteen Rabbit as metaphors for the Real and for Love.

Namaste,

Nicole

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I like wat you say Nicole- we make our choices about what we wish to delude ourselves with and what we wish to make appear real. Most of the stuff around us, and that includes pain - is pretty real eh! A lot of the posts here say much- most of which is as true and meaningful as we would wish it to be. All the varying viewpoints converge to one truth- and that one Truth is unique to us all. We need to give meaning to our existence- and pain like all else is part of life here and now. Happiness and pain are but two sides of the same coin (to use a oft-used expression but makes sense doesn't it?)….we just to keep tossing the coin and blow on it to make the side we wish to envision - stare at us. It's upto us really, isn't it?
Everything is real - AND everything is unreal depending upon the state of mind one chooses to adopt. Our lives move constantly with our minds….it's all in the mind as they say.
Cheers with a big namaste from Bangalore, India
Kay

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I agree with Jill & just want to add that the key to understanding this is to distinguish between actual present moment emotions as they are created by an actual present moment event VS emotions that arise from our memory of the past…

Another important distinction is that maybe not everything is an illusion… I'm not sure how to explain this but the basic key is that we often confuse “words” with the actual “world”.

Words are the language symbols we use to represent the world & they become our illusion of reality when we forget that they are only synbols & take them to be the real world… we get lost in this world of perspectives & opinions where almost everything is subjective but appear to be objective facts just because there was a collective agreement at some point in the past…

Hope this make sense.

“Collective Consciousness & Unconsciousness co-create Collective Reality, which in reality is only Collective Illusion, which we can also label as Collective Delusion… …”
with Love, Light & Laughter :-)
~ Alex Chua

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I agree with you about the physical pain. I tried my theory on it the other day. Physical pain is real to us because it hurts!! I got blood taken the other day and was telling myself “This pain is an illusion and its only temporary.” It didn't “hurt” as much compared to when I wasnt as adament about believing pain was an illusion. Believing that pain is an illusion won't make the physical pain dissapear.
I used the term indifference to describe a mental state. Mentally I become indifferent to the trials and tirbulations of my life because I know that whatever they are, I will do what I have to do to get by. Its not a matter of emotion. The idea is related to the taoist philosophy and partially zen buddhism. Just existing in a content state.

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Yes, most pain and forms of happiness, are indeed just a figment of your imagination. And yes, it starts with our body.
But how we react, is in our minds, how we were taught to react (learnt through experience. For instance, when a cat tries to scratch you, most people pull away their hands. It is a reflex to avoid pain. Problem: The cat will always be faster then the human, ones the cat moves his arms to attack, it is very hard to escape. Now, when you learn yourself the most logic thing. (counter-instinctive) which is to not move at all, you will get small points inside your skin, which you will feel, but won't hurt. And not even bleed. Nails of a cat are like using an knife to cut flesh, only the horizontal movement cuts. That movement usually is induced by ourselves when pulling our hands away…
This is a nice example, of every day life, were an emotion such as pain, is felt, because of what we think is right to do.
For happiness, well it is easy: Most people think you become happy from a lot of money, then again, they never ponder who ever experienced it…

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So, are pain and pleasure mutually exclusive then?
Pain can be offered as a form of pleasure, can't it, as in bodywork that hits that “hurts so good” point, or beyond that, as in pain that is intentionally offered to enhance pleasure in a sexual/sensual context.
So where does that ability to reframe pain as pleasure (or at least, as bearable)  leave off?
When I broke my leg a couple of years ago, there was no way I could find of reframing those sensations and making them tolerable, let alone pleasant. But on the other hand, I nearly gave birth to my son at the grocery store because the pain of labor was a sensation I was able to transmute, even when the contractions were so intense that I was crouching down every five minutes, pretending my shoe needed re-tying so no one would notice and get all worried…
The idea that pain is “an illusion” seems like it takes all the fun and games out of pain…pain is a sensation, and we have a consciousness that is capable of playing with sensation and making some choice about how to interpret it. If I were to hit my dog with the riding crop that would just be mean and awful, because she has no way of turning that around in her experience, her brain doesn't do that. If I do the same thing with my partner it can be amazing and fun, playing with sensation, rhythm, pushing the edges of pleasure and pain without overstepping the boundary of pain, but using the sensations completely. That is something that is unique to our human consciousness I think.
But I'm pretty sure the pain part isn't an illusion…

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No the sensation of pain, is of course no illusion, it is part of our neural network. But what we do, is what we call pain. Imagine, that everytime (like daily) you would caress someone, something bad happens, so that they can no longer use their legs. or that they need to vomit. Such a sensation, though conditioned, can no longer be called 'nice' to that person. Even sensations like hunger can be translated. (a very well know experiment) They learnes a rat only to get food, when he pushed a trigger and a red light started to burn. (but the light didn't always burn, but when it burned, they rat got food. In time, the rat associated, the light, so much with food. He didn't even notice his hunger, when the red light had flashed. it learned to assume 'red light' with a eating itself, and lost its hunger, when the red light burned. When this condition was set in. A small basket of food was placed inside the cage, besides the red light with food clep. (who remained to give food every so once in a while. What happened? the rat still used the rat light. So, they still gave the rat food in a basket. let the red light working, but didn't let the red light give food. What happened? The rat used the Red light, more and more often, until it eventually starved next to the red light, next to a full basket of tastfull food…
Sensations are physical,
What we do with them,
Is purely mental.
Thus it can be called an illusion.

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Hi Nichole, how about using detachment or non-attachment instead of indifferent?

This is one way of ”creating another reality” by changing the words we use…

In other words, how about being detached instead of indifferent? What difference would that make?

When we are detached from a situation, we're still connected & still care… we become an observer from beyond the illusionary world.

When we are indifferent, we are disconnected & don't care… but still stuck within the illusionary world.

& regarding happiness… it is a Choice… at times a difficult one though…

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Yes, Alexchua, that's what I was trying to say –detached. I think it's the perfect word for this situation. Move to the position of the observer and remain detached from the situation.

A mother of a young child is detached from the child's whims that subject him to fits and tantrums. She can easily take him out of a situation, Yet she cares deeply for the child.

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Michael,
I must agree with you for some reason pain sure feel “kinda” alive and real to me as well…?? Like it takes on this “mini” life of its own….tee hee…
I could remember laughing at pain….but now that I am feeling this muscle artheritic pain now…it sure seems kinda real to me…??? the growling roars of it saying…”hey if you think I'm not here…I'm not real…I'm going away soon…well think again''…
Oh my …. I know … this too shall pass…. my “endurance levels” will reach higher and this what that was so painful…will no longer be as painful as it is….later….
(does that make any sense…??)
Please do be abundantly blessed….
Pat

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The illusion is us thinking that there is a reality, or that one state of being is more or less real than another. I think that pain and happiness are states of being, almost like a side effect. For example:

It's raining. Why? Because the clouds carry condensation and the temperature is just right.
I feel pain. Why? Because I just lost a loved one. (emotional pain) Because I was burned (physical pain)
I feel happy. Why? Because I'm in love.

Remember in What the Bleep: Different people have different amounts of receptor sites for different peptides, and those receptors determine the persons' emotional addiction prediliction.

Happiness may or may not be an illusion, but it can be brought about by chemical and hormonal changes in the brain. A physical state, therefore, brings about an emotional state.

Nichole, you said “Indifference is where I find my happiness”, and then clarified later. Here's how I'd put it: When I can drop my preferences and view a situation from a non-biased point of view, being-in-the-moment turns to happiness.
Or something like that.

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Her is a story about pain. I was on a chair lift with a client from Scotland (a hardy folk!). It was snowing sleety hard blowing sideways snow that hurt one's face. We could not keep our eyes open. Nothing could keep the cold damp from penetrating to our skin . And he said: Oh I love this weather! It make me feel that I'm alive!  In the same way Shakespeare put it in “As You Like It”                                                                                  
Here feel we not the penalty of Adam,
The seasons' difference, as the icy fang
And churlish chiding of the winter's wind,
Which when it bites and blows upon my body
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile, and say
'This is no flattery. These are counsellors
That feelingly persuade me what I am.'
Sweet are the uses of adversity
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
I think the pain is real it depend on the circumstances like the riding whip with partner kind yes that makes you feel alive too. So I think since we can control how we perceive the circumstances we can somewhat control how we perceive the pain.

Re: Illusions

all emotion is an illusion if one is focused on detachment

in extreme cases of pain / torture / trauma one can detach from the pain
because we are not our bodies
we are more then these human forms of density and experience
we can at any time retreat from these bodies and return to the oneness of all that is
we could survive in a state of detachment (provided we can maintain that state)

but if one would choose to focus on our human journey
if one chooses to enhance ones emotional states and experiences
one can increase ones pleasure of each enjoyable emotional state

happiness is simply an emotional state of being

one can practice being in this state
one can practice maintaining this state
one can create triggers to turn the state of happiness 'on'

it is your personal journey to discover what gives you the state of happiness

and you know it's ok if it changes as you change
it will evolve with as you evolve

happy is as relative as pain
it is only a state of being

and we do choose it as we travel the human journey

Re: Illusions

Hi,

I'd like to believe emotion is an illusion, especially when i suffer, but i notice you say in extreme cases of pain / torture / trauma one can detach from the pain so the pain is real and so is the natural emotion it engenders… it's awesome mastery to be able to detach that much, but most of us live far from that level…

Namaste,

Nicole

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It is simply allowing oneself to disengage with the physical body - this is something easy enough for anyone to do

obstacles with detachment could be in mixed messages with your choice of experiences. If you say to your human journey that you want to feel everything, then you will feel everything.
the lesson is to clearly define your human journey in great detail
always focus on what you want and say what you mean

I want to enhance the love I share with the world, flowing to and from my physical journey
I want to sit in the sacred healing circle with my pain and allow it to enter the flows of forgiveness
I want to understand my suffering and listen to what it really wants to tell me, then I want to allow my suffering to enter into the flows of forgiveness

I said extreme, because there are reported extreme cases where individuals have said they automatically detached (without thought on it) from the pain suffered by their bodies.
Proof that we are not our bodies.

Pain is relative to the individual, use of the word extreme gives a vivid indication of breaking a threshold of what is bearable.

it is possible to detach without breaking thresholds.

Pain is simply a state of being
you are the one that chooses your state of being

When one is in 'survival' mode, it may seem quite strange to hear that you can choose your state of being.
So if it seems strange or impossible, then perhaps you are not allowing yourself to be fully responsible for your human experience.

Turning Survival Mode off is as simple as becoming responsible for your human journey.
Sitting in the drivers seat and holding onto the wheel
Choosing your state of being
Being responsible for your every action
Acting from the sacred place you call home
Allowing yourself to be fully who you want to BE

it is within your reach
simply and easily

allow yourself to give the suffering a voice
listen to the message
then allow the suffering to release into the embracing flows of forgiveness
Act on that message - from the space of forgiveness, love, gratitude, compassion
choose your state of being
and the suffering will flow out your human journey

Re: Illusions

Why do some people experience more pain than others?       
Osho, excerpted from The Discipline of Transcendence,Volume 4, Chapter 2

Psychological pain can be dissolved; and only psychological pain can be dissolved. The other pain, the physical pain, is part of life and death; there is no way to dissolve it. But it never creates a problem. Have you ever observed? – The problem is only when you are thinking about it. If you think of old age you become afraid, but old people are not trembling. If you think of illness you become afraid, but when the illness has already happened, there is no fear, there is no problem. One accepts it as a fact.

The real problem is always psychological. The physical pain is part of life. When you start thinking about it, it is not physical pain at all; it has become psychological. You think about death; there is fear. But when death actually happens there is no fear. Fear is always about something in the future. Fear never exists in the present moment. If you are going to the front in a war, you will be afraid, you will be very apprehensive. You will tremble, you will not be able to sleep: many nightmares will haunt you. But once you are on the front – ask the soldiers – once you are on the front, you forget all about it. Bullets may be passing and you can enjoy your lunch; and bombs may be falling and you can play cards.

You can ask Gurudayal. He has been in the war, he has been to the front, he has been a soldier; he knows: the fear is about the future. Then the problem is not physical – because the fear exists in your psychology. When the pain is actual, physical, there is no problem about it. Reality never comes as a problem; it is only the ideas about reality that create the problem.

So the first thing to be understood is: if you can dissolve the psychological pain, no problem is left. Then you start living in the moment. “Psychological” means: of the past, of the future, never of the present. Mind never exists in the present. In the present reality exists, not the mind. Mind exists in the past and the future, and in past and future reality does not exist. In fact, mind and reality never come across each other. They have never seen each other's face. Reality remains unknown to mind, and mind remains unknown to reality.

There is an old fable…. Darkness approached God and said, “Enough is enough! Your sun goes on haunting me, chasing me. I can never rest; wherever I go to rest he is there, and I have to run away again. And I have not done any wrong to him. This is unjust. And I have come to you to get justice.” It was perfectly right; the complaint was true. And God called the sun and asked the sun, “Why do you go on chasing this poor woman, darkness? What has she done to you?” The sun said, “I don't know her at all. I have never seen her. You just call her in front of me; only then can I say something. I don't remember ever having done any wrong to her, because I don't know her. We are not familiar. Nobody has ever introduced us to each other, we are not even acquainted. It is for the first time from you that I am hearing about this woman, this darkness. You call her!”

The case remains pending – because God could not call darkness before the sun. They cannot exist together, they cannot encounter each other. When darkness is, the sun cannot be; when the sun is, the darkness cannot be. Exactly the same is the relationship between mind and reality: the psychology is the problem, the reality never is a problem. You just dissolve your psychological problems – and they are dissolved by dissolving the center of them all: the ego. Once you don't think yourself separate from existence, problems simply evaporate, as dewdrops disappear in the morning when the sun rises, not even leaving a trace behind. They simply disappear.

Physical pain will remain, but again I will insist that it has never been a problem to anybody. If your leg is broken, it is broken. It is not a problem. The problem is only in imagination: “If my leg is broken, then what am I going to do? And how am I to avoid, or how am I to behave and work my way so my leg is never broken?”

Now, if you become afraid about such things you cannot live, because your legs can be broken, your neck can be broken, your eyes can go blind. Anything is possible; millions of things are possible. If you become obsessed with all these problems which are possible….

I am not saying they are not possible. They are all possible. Whatsoever has happened to any human being, ever, can happen to you. Cancer can happen, TB can happen, death can happen; everything is possible. Man is vulnerable. You can just go outside on the road and you can be hit by a car. I am not saying don't go outside on the road. You can sit in a room and the roof can fall. There is no way to save yourself totally and perfectly. You can be lying down on your bed, but do you know that ninety-seven percent of people die on a bed? That is the most dangerous place! Avoid it as much as you can; never go to bed. Ninety-seven percent of people die in bed. Even travelling by airplane is not so dangerous; it is more dangerous to be in bed. And remember, more people die in the night… so, remain trembling. Then it is up to you. Then you will not be able to live at all.

Psychological problems are the only problems. You can become paranoid, you can become split, you can become paralyzed because of fear – but this is nothing to do with reality. You see a blind man walking on the road perfectly well; blindness in itself is not the problem. You can see beggars – their legs broken, their hands gone, and still laughing, still gossiping with each other, still talking about women, making remarks, singing a tune.

Just watch life: life is never a problem. Man has tremendous capacity to adjust to the fact, but man has no capacity to adjust to the future. Once you try to protect yourself and secure yourself in the future, then you will be in a turmoil, in a chaos. You will start falling apart. And then there are millions of problems – problems and problems and problems. You cannot even commit suicide, because the poison may not be the right poison. In India you cannot rely on anything! They may have mixed something into it; it may not be poison at all. You may take it and you will lie down… and you will wait and wait and wait – and death is not coming. Then everything creates a problem.

Mulla Nasrudin was going to commit suicide. He came across an astrologer on the street, and the astrologer said, “Mulla, wait. Let me see your hand.” He said, “What do I have to do now with astrology? I am going to commit suicide! So there is no point; now there is no future.” The astrologer said, “Wait. Let me see whether you can succeed or not.” Future remains. You may not succeed, you may be caught by the police, you may misfire. There is no way to be certain about the future – not even about death, not even about suicide. What to say about life? Life is such a complex phenomenon; how can you be certain? Everything is possible and nothing is certain.

If you become afraid, this is just your psychology. Something has to be done to your mind. And if you understand me rightly, meditation is nothing but an effort to look at reality without the mind – because that is the only way to look at reality. If the mind is there it distorts, it corrupts. Drop the mind and see reality – direct, immediate, face to face. And there is no problem. Reality has never created any problem for anybody. I am here, you are also here – I don't see a single problem. If I fall ill, I fall ill. What is there to be worried about? Why make a fuss about it? If I die, I die.

A problem needs space: in the present moment there is no space. Things only happen, there is no time to think about it. You can think about the past because there is distance; you can think about the future, there is distance. In fact, future and past are created just to give us space so that we can worry. And the more space you have, the more worry. Now in India they are much more worried because they think, “Next life… and… and” – ad infinitum – “what is going to happen in the next life?” A person is doing something and he does not think only about the consequences that are going to happen here now; he thinks, “What karma am I going to gather for my future life?” Now he will become even more worried; he has more space. And how is he going to fill that space? – he will fill it with more and more problems. Worry is a way to fill the empty space of the future.

The questioner says, “I have glimpses of how psychological, existential pain is created by ego. It is homemade, and it can be unmade.”

Just understanding it intellectually won't help; you have to do it. Do it, and then the next question will disappear. Do it, and then you will find there is not any problem left. “But what about physical pain?” Now this is how problems arise. Intellectually you have understood one thing, but that doesn't make any sense. The next question immediately brings your reality to the surface: you have not understood. It is as if a blind man goes on groping with his stick; he finds his path by it. And then we say, “Your eyes can be cured, but then you will have to drop your walking stick. It is not needed.” The blind man will say, “I can understand that my eyes can be cured, but how can I walk without my stick?” Now, intellectually he has understood that eyes can be cured, but existentially, experientially, he has not understood it – otherwise the next question wouldn't arise.

Sometimes people come to me and they ask one question, and I say, “You go on; you ask the next too.” Because one question may not show the reality; they may be just showing their intellectual understanding. But with the next question they are bound to be caught. They are bound to be, because with the next question, immediately they will miss. The first part of the question is perfect, but you have got the point only through the mind. It is not yet chewed well, it is not yet digested. It has not become blood, bones, marrow. It is not yet part of your existence. Otherwise you can never ask, “What about the physical pain?” – because the very question is psychological. Physical pain is not a problem – when it is there, it is there; when it is not there, it is not there.

A problem arises when something is not there and you want it to be there, or when something is there and you don't want it to be there. A problem is always psychological: “Why is it there?” Now this is all psychological. Who is to say why it is there? There is nobody to answer. Only explanations can be given, but those are not really answers. Explanations are simple. It is very simple: pain is there because pleasure is there. Pleasure cannot exist without pain.

If you want a life absolutely painless, then you will have to live a life absolutely pleasureless. They come together in one package. They are not two things really; they are one thing – not different, not separate, and cannot be separated.

That's what man has been doing through the centuries: separating, to somehow have all the pleasures of the world and not have any pain; but this is not possible. The more pleasures you have, the more pain also. The bigger the peak, the deeper will be the valley by the side. You want no valleys and you want big peaks. Then the peaks cannot exist; they can exist only with valleys. The valley is nothing but a situation in which a peak becomes possible. The peak and the valley are joined together. You want pleasure and you don't want pain.

For example: you love a woman or you love a man, and when the woman is with you you are happy. Now, you would like to be happy whenever she is with you, but when she goes away you don't want the pain. If you are really happy with a woman when she is with you, how can you avoid the pain of separation when she is gone and she is no longer there? You will miss her, you will feel the absence. The absence is bound to become pain. If you really want that you should not have any pain, then you should start avoiding all pleasure. Then when the woman is there don't feel happy; just remain sad, just remain unhappy – so that when she goes, there is no problem.

If somebody greets you and you feel happy, then when somebody insults you you will feel unhappy. This trick has been tried. This has been one of the most basic tricks that all of the so-called religious people have tried: if you want to avoid pain, avoid pleasure. But then what is the point? If you want to avoid death, avoid life – but then what is the point of it all? You will be dead. Before death, you will be dead.

If you want to be perfectly secure, enter into your grave and lie down there. You will be perfectly secure. Don't breathe, because if you breathe there is danger… because there are all sorts of infections…. There is danger, so don't breathe, don't move… just don't live. Commit suicide; then there will be no pain. But then why are you searching for it? You want no pain and all pleasure. You demand something impossible: you want that two plus two should not be four. You want them to become five, or three, or anything, but never four. But they are four.

Whatever you do, howsoever you deceive yourself and others, they will remain four. Pain and pleasure go together like night and day, like birth and death, like love and hate.

Copyright © 2006 Osho International Foundation

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I came across a blog by Richard G. Petty, MD today & here's something he wrote regarding pain & pleasure. It is not exactly along the lines of our discussion here but it's something important to my vocation & I'm posting it here so I can find it whenever I need it ;-)

Motivation by Richard G. Petty, MD on July 10, 2006

I’ve recently seen an entire self-help system based upon a discredited psychological model of a disease. There’s a book and a website and loads of glowing testimonials. Maybe the methods work, and maybe they don’t. But if the basic principle is wrong, it’s impossible to apply the methods in a new situation. One of the fruits of the Chinese Cultural Revolution was the creation of the “barefoot doctors” – peasants who provided basic medical care throughout much of rural China. They had little training but had a set of manuals that told them exactly what to do with most common ailments. And when they came up against something that was in the book, they were fine. But because the practitioners had not been trained on the basic principles of anatomy, physiology or subtle systems, the system had no flexibility. If you had a chest infection, and the same signs and symptoms that they had in the book, then everything was fine. But if you had symptoms or an illness not in the book, you were out of luck.

In recent years a lot of people have gone back to talking about pleasure and pain as the principle motivators of human behavior. Of course, these two factors play some part in our behavior. And the idea that they are the key drivers is simple, easy to understand and easy to explain.

And dead wrong.

Eighty-six years ago Sigmund Freud published a short essay entitled Jenseits des Lustprinzips, which was eventually translated into English as Beyond the Pleasure Principle. All those years ago he had already come to the conclusion that there were other equally important drives, and that to try and reduce human motivation and behavior to pleasure and pain is very misleading.

We have a very large scientific literature on some of the factors involved in human motivation, how to achieve change and improvement in our lives and how to motivate others. Let me give just a few of the more important ones that cannot be reduced to pain and pleasure, and for which we have good empirical data:
1.    Clarity of vision
2.    Encouragement
3.    Personal engagement
4.    Recognition
5.    Pride
6.    Free flow of energy and information
7.    Appropriate reward systems (money is often not the best one!)
8.    Personal and group expectations
9.    Creating shared goals
10.  Transpersonal motivation: Inspiration and leaving a legacy

There are others, like emotional congruence, that can, perhaps, be reduced to the pleasure/pain axis.

Source: http://richardgpettymd.blogs.com/my_weblog/

Re: Illusions

and yet all these are some of the greatest pleasures we have! Pleasure is not just physical or sexual though we often experience our pleasure physically… so i really don't see that he is moving away from the pleasure/pain axis here.

anyone else have the same problem i have with this?

love,

nicole

Re: Illusions

Thanks for pointing this out Nicole!

Re: Illusions

I just read this thread on happiness and pleasure - many great things are shared.  We are not our bodies but we HAVE bodies in choosing the human experience and it was chosen for our own purpose, evolution of the soul, etc.  Pain and happiness are part of the human existance so it is a part of our reality.  We have power and choices concerning them, but they do exist.  Even the slightest shift in our imagination can move us from pain to peace in an instant.  The same with happiness or any emotion we are experiencing.  Many have spoken of being the observer and I agree.  This works in an amazing way to allow you to gain clarity.  I also believe in exploring those emotional hurts to get information about things that are blocking us from our greatest good.  We have to know them to release them.  I have had situations trigger painful emotions and instead of looking at the actual situation, I often pay attention to my own inner feelings and reactions - it has helped to to unlock things witihin me that allow me to experience life in a more whole way.

Severe trauma, physical or emotional do cause people to actually leave there bodies in order to cope because of the intense pain.  It can be very necessary for pure survival.  It can happen to people that have severe accidents and report being above the scene, viewing from above but it is because the pain is so real.  In everyday situations I don't think it is useful to disconnect  from your body.  We are humans to have the experience of being fully human and yet allow the fullness of the power of God to channel through our experience here. 

For me taking the stance of the observer of myself and any situation is what allows me the greatest opportunity to stay completely engaged and present, yet it lessens the power of emotions while not denying them.

Debby

Re: Illusions

Very helpful and insightful, Debby.  If I am understanding you correctly, would the biblical quote “Be in the world, but not Of the world…”  be an accurate summation?  I have always found that passage to be helpful to me whenever I try to tackle the sticky duality of paradox, on which this discussion seems to focus.    If I am not understanding correctly, please advise, I hope to gain greater understanding.    Thanks to  all for the insights—fabulous! 

Re: Illusions

Moonstar,

Yes, that is a good comparison to what I am saying.  We are spiritual beings having a human experience.  It is chosen by us to be here, therefore has great meaning to the evolution of our souls.  Jesus experienced every emotion known to man to show us his identification with mankind.  “Be in the world, not of the world”, is exactly what Jesus did and he said we had all the same capabilities that he had to do the same.  Jesus had very strong emotions at times and other times he was set apart from his emotions.  Life calls for both from us and it is up to us to know if we are denying (avoiding) or dramatizing (over identifying) them.   This is where observation of the self  can be so powerful.

Debby

 


 

Re: Illusions

     Yes,Yes,Yes, it is all true. When a person really learns these things are real and they believe them they start living them and will uncover the spirit that they trully are. As they clean their house and they know they must now clean their house, they will reclaim their inheritance and truly live in peace.  If such a person layed it all out in a book, a most simple book, would people be interested in it?
                  Your friend, Don