Jnana translates as discrimination, “This is not of God and this is of God, the highest Light and Truth.” Jnana helps to clear us from attachment by dis-identifying with those things that are not of God, and immersing ourselves into those things that are of God. There are many categories of attachment that ensnare the mind, but the body-mind relationship is certainly one of most powerful.
Identification with the body means when your body feels pleasure or pain you have no separation between those sensations and who you are. We are seduced from an early age by pleasure. We like the feeling of pleasure and become totally consumed by wanting more and more and thus creating attachment. Of course pain is also present when living in a body and our attachment to pain even further roots us in the body. We come to forget that in Spirit we are free of attachment to either pleasure or pain, because we have bliss which has no opposite.
Obviously if we live in a body we will be subject to pleasure and pain, but the key is to have superior bliss and in this way we detach from pure body identification. Desire for pleasure and the fear of pain cements our identification with the body, so both must be given up. It is interesting how attachment to pain through fear is so powerful. You would think that giving up attachment to pain would be easy, as that is not something wanted, yet the fear of pain is a powerful magnet that draws the mind and makes it very attached to the body.
An important turning point in this regard came for me when I was at Anandashram. I was quite sick for several weeks running a very high fever and I had tremendous pain in the body. I was inwardly talking to Papa saying, “Papa, you say that pain and bliss are the same, right now I only feel pain; you must show me how pain and bliss are the same.” Suddenly I was lifted up in a vision in which I saw Papa opposite of me. He had a toothless smile and took my hands, we started to dance around and around in a circle, he was laughing and I was filled with bliss. I was still aware that my body was in pain, but I was even more aware of being filled with bliss. Then I “saw” that the same life-force that flowed to the brain as pain signals was also flowing into the brain as bliss. On that level pain and bliss were the same!
This started a thought process that continued over time in which anytime the body had pain I would go to the substratum of seeing that is was God’s life-force that was carrying the pain signals to my brain. Immediately upon seeing this the vast majority of pain would transmute itself into pure life-energy and bliss; leaving some pain signal but much reduced. I also learned how when we focus on pain as an absolute and fear becomes a driver, it intensifies pain tremendously.
Losing fear of pain, seeing the underlying life-force as coming from God behind the pain signals, and then feeling God’s Presence in the form of bliss has a tremendously palliative effect in suffering. Not only can it ease suffering in itself, it also opens intuition so that the Divine Force may be free to affect a cure.
Recently I have written much about the condition of this body wanting to give you updates on what the medical care providers have been saying. However, it is important to note that more important than what doctors and nurses say, what does God say? More importantly than what symptoms this body displays, what is all-powerful life-force doing in and around the body? And more important than what pain or discomfort this body may be in at any particular time, what bliss is flowing through my being. What I can tell you is that God is fully present and accounted for. His bliss is even now flowing through my spine and brain and through all the cells of my body. Truly there is nothing but He, even when there is weakness, pain or discomfort, it is all He! Let not this talk of the body and medical procedures (which I find interesting) make you forget there is something far greater going on daily.
“Why then,” you may ask, “is there a physical problem when God is present?” There are many times when God’s Presence can and does manifest as complete physical healing. However, there are a variety of causes that manifest as a physical problems, and there are times when God will use His physical instruments to fulfill His higher will. Thus, there is no contradiction in His perfection and His use of a physical body to fulfill a necessary karma or bring about desirable outcomes on this earth (As Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death but is for the glory of God;” John 11:4) .
Meditate deeply upon this important concept of jnana: discriminating between what is of God and what is not of God. Learn to go beyond the things of the body and this world; know that God is the supreme Presence that assuages all pain and ignorance and makes us know we are one with the Omniscient Lord. It is in this knowledge that you will find freedom and bliss in the Divine Presence.