Believe it or not, you can dissolve pain and let go because it is a choice. It may not seem easy, but it is as simple as putting your pain into the perspective of the big picture of life experience and spiritual evolution. Remember that things are only as bad as you allow them to be.
The Apprentice and the Salt
A Hindu master was growing tired of listening to his apprentice complaining. One morning the master sent him for some salt.
When the apprentice returned, the master instructed the young man to put a handful of salt in a glass of water and then to drink it.
“How does it taste?” the master asked.
“Bitter,” said the apprentice as he spat it out.
Next, the two walked in silence to the nearby lake where the apprentice rinsed the salt from his hand in the water. The master chuckled and asked the young man to take another handful of salt and put it in the lake. Then the old man said, “Now drink from the lake.”
After the young man drank from the lake, the master asked, “How does it taste?”
“Fresh,” replied the apprentice.
“Do you taste the salt?” asked the master.
“No,” said the young man.
The master sat beside the water and asked his apprentice to sit with him. The old man understood the young man because his apprentice reminded the master of himself when he was young. He looked into the younger man’s eyes and spoke:
“The pain of life is like pure salt–no more, no less. The amount of pain in life remains exactly the same. However, the amount of bitterness we taste depends on the container into which we put the pain. When you are in pain, enlarge your perspective. Stop being a glass. Be a lake.”
You Can Dissolve Pain
You have the choice to drink from the glass or the lake. Many people identify themselves with their pain. Instead of learning from and dissolving pain, they hold it and allow it to destroy them. We are programmed to do this. We are programmed to believe that suffering is somehow holy and purifying. Human beings have been taught to believe that suffering means we care or that suffering gets attention and sympathy.
Pain and suffering rob us of the joy of life. They rob us of gratitude, laughter, and splendid existence.
Dissolving pain does not mean that you do not hold compassion for yourself and others for life’s challenging experiences. When I teach detachment, I always explain that Divine Detachment requires loving compassion and letting go. Dissolving pain is the same. You can have understanding and compassion but still, let go.
Choose to be the lake in all that you do and all that you experience. Choose to allow everything to be part of the grand whole of what you are here to learn, to love, and to become. You are divine. Life is beautiful. Allow yourself to know the joy of it all that is and rejoice.
Image by LoggaWiggler from pixabay.com