_Question:_ Sometimes because of sickness, because of pain, I am very sad, and I know that is not good. I must enjoy everything, not be sad.

Sri Chinmoy: At the times when you feel tremendous physical pain, just say, “This body belongs to the Supreme. It is not mine. It belongs to Him; it belongs to God.” Then automatically you will separate yourself from the pain. You are full of pain because you and your body have become one. But if you can feel that this body is not yours — which is so true, because it is God’s — then immediately God and the pain are put together, instead of you and the pain. If you can say that your body belongs to God, then your physical pain and God’s Concern, God’s Compassion, will have to stay together. Naturally God’s Compassion will take care of that pain.

Another thing you can do on the practical plane is just to look around you. There are many people in the hospital and in other places who are suffering much more than you are. When you realise this, immediately your pain decreases. If you think that you are suffering more than others, then you feel that your suffering is unbearable. But if you can feel that there are people who are suffering much more than you, your own suffering will be minimised. You can think of your physical pain, but if you think of me, my mental pain, my vital pain, because the disciples are not listening to me, then you will see that my pain is infinitely more painful than yours. You are suffering from your own body, but I am suffering from the physical pain of many disciples, plus their mental weaknesses, vital weaknesses and earthly shortcomings. I am suffering much more than you are, but in my case I have the capacity to hide it. So if you think, “I am suffering, but my Guru is suffering much more,” you will feel better.

Even today I have a very high fever. Nobody will believe how I hide it. I was playing tennis yesterday for hours with Casey. Did Casey ever think that I had such a high fever? If Casey had had that kind of fever, he would have dropped on the tennis court. But I went on, because the Supreme has given me the capacity to hide it. If you can think that I suffer much more than you, or that others at the hospital or some people somewhere in God’s creation are suffering much more than you, then immediately you will feel a kind of relief. You will say, “Oh, I am so grateful to God that at least my pain is not as severe as theirs.”

Then there is still another way to deal with this experience of physical suffering. You can offer your gratitude to God that He is having an experience in and through your body. You will tell yourself, “I am so grateful to God that He is having this experience in and through my body. I am so grateful that He has chosen my body to go through this experience of suffering, and not somebody else’s body. I am glad that He has accepted my body to have a special experience which I call pain. But I know that it is not pain as such; it is just an experience that He is having.”

If you try any of these three ways, you will be successful. Whichever way is easiest for you, kindly try. In one of these ways if you can keep yourself aware, then you will feel much, much better every day.

From:Sri Chinmoy,AUM — Vol.II-4, No.12, December 27, 1977, Vishma Press, 1977
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