A Christian Mystic’s Guide To Dealing With Pain
Our search for the meaning of pain, hardship, and suffering is a profound and enduring human endeavor.
Throughout history, our spiritual beliefs and religious teachings have helped us understand and find meaning in life’s challenges and painful experiences.
These interpretations provide comfort, guidance, and a sense of peace in the face of adversity as we learn that suffering has a purpose or can lead to spiritual growth, enlightenment, or a deeper connection with the divine.
Our spiritual quest to better understand pain is driven by a deep desire to make sense of life’s challenges and to discover how these difficult experiences fit into the larger tapestry of our existence.
Religions and spiritual wisdom traditions around the world offer different perspectives on pain and suffering, each with its own explanation for why these experiences occur and how they should be approached or understood.
These diverse perspectives all share certain common threads: that the origins of pain and suffering lie in the concept of duality; that there is meaning to be found in suffering; and that through faith, reflection, and spiritual practice we can transcend the pain caused by duality and connect with something greater than ourselves.
We may think of the Garden of Eden as a dim and mythical past, but its essence lies within us all ~ Joseph Campbell
Throughout my life, most of my spiritual education has come from the Christian faith. I was raised in a very strict evangelical family that held to a literal interpretation of the Bible. I was also trained and ordained as a Christian minister, so much of my knowledge and understanding of spirituality comes from this religious tradition. However, I remain open to all wisdom traditions and have gained deeper insight into God and spirituality through many other paths over the years.
I have come to understand that literalism, which holds the Bible to be the ultimate truth about God, is actually the opposite of its true intent. When we choose to worship Scripture as entirely literal and the sole source of all knowledge and understanding, it inadvertently becomes a “deity” in its own right. It oversteps its intended role by attempting to answer every possible question that life can throw at us, thereby becoming not only a guide to knowing and understanding God, but to replace God Himself.
This perspective turns the Bible into an idol or totem. Several passages in the Bible highlight the importance of directly worshiping only God and avoiding the creation or adoration of physical representations or idols. Idolatry is anything that stands above ultimate reality, our direct connection with the Holy Spirit, and our innate love for God.
Rather than being idolized, the Bible is meant to serve as a valuable guide to a deeper understanding and experience of the boundless grace and love of God, provided we view it as a tool for spiritual growth and learning rather than as the final and ultimate word. T
he biblical texts are, among other things, a way to gain a deeper understanding of human suffering, loss, pain, and our potential for deep connection to God’s love. But to truly access and understand its divine wisdom and guidance, we must embrace its profound allegory and mystical symbolism, rather than trying to make literal sense of everything it contains.
Here are some of the insights I have discovered in my own journey of spiritual growth:
The Story Of Creation
The creation story in Genesis, familiar to many, introduces us to a world created entirely by God. God created humanity in the same image as the divine, a lush garden of perfection, and finally, two magical trees. One of the trees is the Tree of Life, which brought abundance and perfection to the garden. The other was the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. God warned the man and woman He created, known as Adam and Eve, that if they ate from this second tree, death would soon follow.
As the story unfolds, the man and woman were eventually tempted by a serpent to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The serpent is an interesting figure because historically, in many metaphysical traditions, serpents are a symbol of rebirth, immortality, transformation, healing, and life. This is not the archetypal image of the snake that I was taught as a child. Instead, I was taught that the serpent was the evil embodiment of enmity with God and spitefully sought to destroy God’s perfection through the destruction of mankind.
Today, I understand the symbolism of the serpent as representing immortality. For me, it makes sense in the context of the story that the temptation did not occur by accident or because an evil entity was present in that perfect place, but because of the purpose and destiny of the garden. Since the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was there from the beginning, the desire to eat from the tree would eventually manifest itself by design.
Banish me from Eden if you will; but first let me eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge! ~ Robert G. Ingersoll
The Emergence of Duality
The most important thing to remember about the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is that it is not inherently bad or “evil. Rather, it symbolizes the emergence of duality into human consciousness: the knowledge of two opposing realities within the context of perfection. In the immaculate Garden of Eden, there was absolutely nothing in human experience that could have been in opposition to the innate “goodness” of what was before them. In fact, it had been declared as such by God in earlier chapters.
The first experience of contrast that humanity has after eating from the Tree of Knowledge is the realization that they were naked. They realized that their own experience was separate from the world around them, and through that realization there was a need to shield themselves from that experience. They wanted to cover themselves, and they tried desperately to do so on their own, even though it was a mistake that caused more pain.
Duality is a concept found in various religious, philosophical, and spiritual traditions that posits the existence of two fundamental yet opposing forces or principles that form the underlying structure of reality. It implies that the universe, creation, the world, life, and even human nature are composed of or influenced by opposing elements such as good and evil, light and darkness, spirit and matter, or order and chaos.
In many traditions, spiritual duality is seen as a framework for understanding the complexity of existence and human experience. In Zoroastrianism, for example, there’s a clear dualistic cosmology of good and evil deities in constant conflict. Similarly, in Taoism, the concept of Yin and Yang represents interrelated and opposing forces that interact to form a dynamic system in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Duality is primarily used to explore and explain the origins of pain, suffering, and evil, as well as the purpose of life and the path to salvation, enlightenment, harmony, or transcendence.
The Persistent Love of God
The next event in the creation story is an encounter with God. God sought them out. When I was taught the literal interpretation of this story, I was told that the “sin” or evil that occurred after they ate from the tree separated the children of Eden from divinity. That God and evil could not coexist. However, this first encounter of God seeking them actually shows the opposite to be true. Although duality had caused them to internalize good and evil, it did not separate them from eternal love. This love continued to pursue them even after they ate from the tree.
It still does today. The pursuit of the Divine for the attention of humanity has always persisted and will always persist. I am convinced that this Supreme Love has persistently sought me and is persistently seeking you. Thus, the symbolic image of God seeking the two naked and afraid humans in the garden represents God’s persistent search to connect with humanity regardless of our state of mind or being.
Immortality is what the mortals must try to achieve if they want to live up to the world into which they were born ~ Hannah Arendt
The Serpent of Immortality
The first action of the Divine was to deal with the serpent. As a symbol, the serpent represents the eternal nature of our existence. Therefore, it is all the more important for us to understand that God did not destroy the serpent, but rather “cursed” it to crawl on the ground and placed an antagonism between man and the serpent. God also said that their children would crush the head of the serpent, but the serpent would then strike back and bite their heels.
Because the snake represents immortality, what happens here is that man’s experience of immortality is diminished or downgraded. It doesn’t disappear or end, which is why it is still expressed in many spiritual traditions and teachings about the afterlife, rebirth, and so on. Immortality exists, but our full human understanding of it is lost or obscured.
More importantly, because of immortality and dualism, there is also good and evil in the afterlife. The only logical conclusion is that the duality we experience in mortal life must also be eternal in the afterlife. Granted, not all religious traditions view the afterlife as dualistic in nature, but it is a common belief in many. This is the nature of the serpent. Immortality exists and is often feared.
God also says in Genesis that the sons of the woman would crush the head of the serpent, but the serpent would respond by biting his heel. This is the rejection of the eternal or immortal nature of our existence, but even though the head is crushed, the serpent (immortality) will strike back. This represents our own struggle with the nature of our human experience and the concept of eternal life.
We have become so enamored with physical mortality that humanity has even constructed belief systems that attempt to destroy the immortal nature of our being. This manifests itself in the denial of any kind of afterlife, and also in the denial of the existence of God.
The Nature of Pain and Suffering
The next major development in Genesis is when God turns to humanity and says that they too are now “cursed” to experience hardship, pain, and suffering. Pain in everyday life, symbolized by having to work hard to survive, and also pain in the renewal of life, symbolized by the pain of bearing children.
I was taught that this was an act of anger and wrath on God’s part, but I now believe that this is one of the most intrinsic blessings we could have been given. When we look at pain in the context of duality, the “curse” is a terrible event. If we take this literally, we begin to see a side of God that is unloving and untrustworthy. However, it is the nature of our duality that produces such judgments.
Pain is not our enemy. It is an honest teacher, telling us when there is something in our situation that needs to be changed or addressed. Both pleasure and pain are not just psychological states, but spiritual experiences that can lead to deeper insight, growth, and understanding of the true nature of our existence.
Our resistance to pain is represented in Genesis by the symbolism of nakedness. It represents how we became aware of duality, that parts of us are “good” and others are “bad” or “evil. When we resist pain because we conceptualize it as “bad” or “evil,” we are essentially judging and creating resistance. The result of resistance is suffering, which is represented in this story as the expulsion of the man and woman from the Garden.
Instead of resisting the duality in our human existence, we must recognize and accept both pleasure and pain as essential aspects of life, each offering opportunities for learning, transformation, and connection with God. By embracing duality rather than trying to escape it, we achieve a more harmonious and balanced approach to life, recognizing the role of both pleasure and pain in the spiritual journey toward enlightenment, self-discovery, or connection with the Divine.
Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it ~ Helen Keller
Birth of the Human Ego
The next step in the Eden story is clothing. To give them a method of dealing with their newfound awareness of good and evil, God, in absolute love, covered them so that they would not have to deal with the shame of their “nakedness” all at once. An insulation was constructed to deal with their “nakedness” in a way that would allow them to exist without having to completely isolate themselves. Thus the human ego was born – a means of experiencing the agony of duality and resistance to pain, which is suffering, without being consumed by it.
The ego works in our favor because it allows us to continue on our path and seek the truth. However, the ideal goal here is not ego, but nakedness. The understanding that what is happening in our experience is not inherently good or inherently bad, it just is. The ego provides a temporary means of emotional protection until we are ready to accept reality for what it is without judgment. It protects us from complete dissociation from what is real, which is psychosis.
The Kingdom of Heaven
Spirit also revealed to me that this story is not a literal event, but the experience of life. It represents the daily journey we face as well as our evolutionary path. Eden is still available to us today. This is what Jesus meant when he said, “The kingdom of heaven is within you. It is the innate reality of being and the contentment of non-judgment. This can be found by letting go of our classifications of good and evil so that we can simply experience what is, whether it is pain or pleasure. To experience pain so that it leads us to a greater understanding of our “being,” and to experience pleasure as something that resonates the goodness of God in our being.
Understanding the biblical creation story in this way resonates with my spiritual path. It may or may not resonate with you. I’m not asking you to adopt my belief system; in fact, I don’t want anyone to simply adopt my belief system. Belief is simply a state of mind that helps us move into a higher reality. It is inevitable that many of my current beliefs are flawed or my understanding is limited. My purpose is to share what I have experienced as a higher reality, a reality that accepts things as they truly are.
Suffering is always a resistance to something that, through our duality, appears inherently bad or good in our experience. The practice I want you to consider is the complete acceptance of what is happening in and around you without judgment. Tell yourself that it is okay. If you feel pain, give yourself permission to feel the pain. Allow yourself to ask it why it is there.
Embracing The Wisdom of Pain
In terms of understanding and dealing with pain, I feel like it was only after my father died and I was able to care for him for the last six months of his life that I was able to really begin to embrace pain as a mentor and a guide. The pain that comes with this kind of loss is a natural response. As I walked through the grief with Spirit, I learned to ask the pain I was feeling to tell me why it was here. Sometimes I needed to cry, sometimes I needed to be angry, but I never judged what was going on.
As I have gone through this grieving process, and still go through it at times, I have come to realize more and more that the pain has not only become much more tolerable, but has actually become a beloved friend. It has brought me to a greater understanding of life and a purer understanding of Spirit.
You couldn’t relive your life, skipping the awful parts, without losing what made it worthwhile. You had to accept it as a whole ~ Stewart O’Nan’
The Return To Eden
I am convinced that the only true way to God is to embrace duality and accept all that is without judgment. Through acceptance comes love. In fact, love is acceptance without judgment, and in my understanding, God is love. God is in everything, the birds, the trees, the walls, the floor, you and me. The nature of God’s love echoes through all things, even our pain, and always leads us to greater acceptance. This is the true nature of faith.
When we accept everything that comes into our lives as the nature of God, we find the Tree of Life again. The ability to experience life fully without judgment, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
This may be a new message to you, and that is okay. Take time to think or meditate or pray about it. Live in non-judgment for a few moments each day and you will begin to have a clearer understanding of your pain. Knowing Spirit is a process, but my admonition to you is to never give up on that process.
To give you another example from my own life, one of my biggest problems was being overweight in a thin world. I saw fat as “bad” and thin as “good. The resistance that came from this perspective caused me much suffering for many years. When I finally realized that there is nothing inherently wrong with being overweight, my understanding shifted and I was able to eat from the Tree of Life again on this particular issue. Sometimes I still eat from that old tree or trees like it. However, my experience is shifting such that I am now living in God’s Eden rather than my own construction of hell.
Finally, a simple message from the New Testament. In Matthew 7:7-8 Jesus says, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, he who seeks finds, and he who knocks, the door will be opened to him.
Be patient with yourself and persist. If there wasn’t already a certain amount of perseverance, you wouldn’t be reading this. Know and accept this completely. It doesn’t matter how long it takes you to get back to Eden, it is always there, waiting for you to return.
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