How Can You Manage Chronic Pain? | Eckhart Tolle Answers #chronicpain

It doesn't mean you cannot seek cure. You can take steps, but while it's there, to see it as a purification, because it has the potential of completely burning up your ego. So what to do? Especially if you've already tried a lot of approaches, it's always easy to speak for somebody who is not experiencing physical pain at the moment. I'm not experiencing physical pain. I have known pain, but not prolonged period of time. Not physical pain or a prolonged period of time. But I know suffering. There is such a thing as conscious suffering. Obviously, you should continue to seek ways of alleviating the pain or finding a cure. But in the meantime, while it's there, I suggest that you explore the possibility of consciousness suffering. That was practiced, for example, in Christianity, and it may still be practiced by certain people who are strongly identified with the Christian religion. But it was a very common thing in Middle Ages, when you had pain to equate your pain with the suffering of Christ. Christ was the archetype of suffering. Whether you see Christ as a real person that lived, I believe he did, or whether Christ is a mythical concept, it can work in the same way. Christ is the archetype of suffering and of transcending suffering in the same way that Buddha's teaching he himself described. Buddha said, I teach suffering and the end of suffering. The literal words of the Buddha, I teach suffering means I show you how suffering arises. The end of suffering is the transcendence of suffering. Jesus didn't say that, but it's all contained in his life. And the image of the crucifixion and the cross, because the cross is the instrument of suffering. It's a torture instrument. And then you see the God nailed to the cross or the man nailed to the cross. It is the archetype of human suffering. In that sense, one could say he represents every man and woman, because every man and woman goes through their suffering. It might not be extreme physical pain, but it is human suffering, some more extreme than others. And then he died. And then the resurrection happened. And then the cross, the torture instrument, the very thing that gave him the pain, symbolizes the divine. So it becomes a portal into the transcendent dimension by completely surrendering, which is the image on the cross is the image of total surrender. And that is in some traditions, called conscious suffering, which is, you don't need to necessarily. If you're not a believing Christian, it would be hard for you to say that you are suffering with Christ. But there's a deep truth in here, and that is, and I have seen it, in people that I have known, people who have had pain for years, it can, if used consciously, it can erode your ego completely. If you regard it as a fire that's burning up, burning you up. The false you in burning up and so conscious is to actually not to resist it psychologically. It doesn't mean you cannot seek cure. You can take steps, but while it's there to see it as a purification. Because it has the potential of completely burning up your ego if used consciously. And that is for those people who. You might as well practice that, because that's all that's possible for you at the moment. If you then see there's a healing method or a healer somewhere, why not go there? But in the meantime you practice conscious suffering. So that is not only with physical pain, you can also do it with other situations that you may be in. Suffering arises and you come to complete acceptance if you completely accept. In a way we really, to be strict, we should differentiate between suffering and pain. Normally the way I use the words are suffering is the psychological pain that is generated through resistance. So if you suffer physical pain, it can be terrible, but you can have physical pain without suffering, meaning without any resistance, psychological resistance on top of it. That's the suffering. And that applies to not just physical pain, but any situation in life. Anything that goes wrong, there's the suffering is the psychological layer that is created through non acceptance. So that does not need to be there, that is a practice. So we all, most of you, most humans on the planet don't have a spiritual teacher. They don't even would even want. They don't haven't even heard of a spirit, anything, such a spiritual teacher, what's that? But they all have their suffering. So I say that everybody has their spiritual teacher. And for most humans it's their suffering because. Because eventually the suffering has an evolutionary function. That is both the suffering that seems to come to you out of nowhere and the suffering that is self generated in your mind and through unconscious action in the world, which then draws to you further unconsciousness from others. Nations, for example, go to war. That's unconscious action then drawing further suffering to themselves. So there are two kinds of suffering. One seems to come out of nowhere and other suffering is obviously generated through unconscious mind activity. And it is that kind of suffering that creates all the atrocities on a collective level and the personal drama that people are engaged in on a daily basis. That is ultimately completely unnecessary. But it is generated by unconscious mind activity. And the egoic self, which is mind made. So those are that's the suffering that. Now, if you look at the amount of suffering that humans encounter, you will see that the larger part of suffering that humans encounter is self generated. Yes, there is suffering that happens through earthquakes, natural disasters and illness. Illness is already on the borderline between self generated and something that just comes to you. Many illnesses are self generated through dysfunctional thinking and emotion. But if you look at the amount of suffering that's self generated, it's far greater than the amount that seems to come to you from the outside. If you look at the history of the 20th century, especially the first half of the 20th century, how many people died through natural disasters or died prematurely through an illness compared to the people that were murdered by their fellow human beings, far more were murdered by their fellow human beings in the 20th, especially the first half of the 20th century, than people who suffered through natural disasters or natural causes. Just amazing. It was hell for millions, millions of people, 150 million, who knows the exact figure who were murdered in the first half of the 20th century alone. Many of them, not even many, yes, between nations, but millions and millions of others murdered by their own governments. In Russia, in Germany, in China, by insane governments murdering, or as in China, bringing about through absurd policies, the starvation of millions. So if you want to have in any doubt about the dysfunction of the egoic mind, you just look at that, look at that history and see how much suffering humans generate for themselves. So that is something that we no longer do. And that's why we are here. We don't do that. And there is still certain amount of suffering that will come to us now. There is a belief, especially new age people, they will tell you whenever something happens to you, you fall ill, or you have an accident, or whatever happens, they may ask you why did you manifest that? And that makes lots of people angry, understandably because they say, I didn't manifest this accident. It just happened. There was a crazy driver and he comes coming towards me. Nothing I could do. I didn't manifest it or I didn't manifest this terrible illness. I never wanted it. What are you saying? Therefore I never say, did you manifest it or you manifested it? Or you should look into why you manifested it. Why not leave it alone? All I say is whatever happens to you, once it's happening, accept it as if you had chosen it. That's the important thing. I'm not saying you chose it. You won't want to hear that. And it's not even literally true. There's some truth hiding there, but we don't need to go there. It's more important to choose whatever is happening, whatever is happening in this moment, or as if you had chosen it, and then the resistance goes it.