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Look back at your life. When you were happy, did you ever wonder about the meaning of life? Did you look inwards to see who you are, what life is all about? Did you feel the need to deeply know the ultimate Truth? No! When things go smooth you just blindly follow the same routine with barely any awareness or consciousness. There is nothing to jolt you from your routine, to make you start asking questions.

But when bad times come, they make you look at life objectively. Pain forces you to look deeper into life, to learn why you react the way you react and seek to uncover the real mystery of life. Pain is a blessing in disguise. It is the key that can open the door to the world of reality. The choice of whether to open the door or not is yours.

Pain can simply shake you out of both the dream state and the ‘waking dream’ state you are in. Never curse pain or the person who is inflicting pain on you. Instead, take the opportunity to use it as a blessing, to go in, watch objectively, and cut the root of the pain. Pain can be a great teacher if you allow it to be. If in one instance you properly research the cause and effect of pain within you, it can turn out to be the biggest turning point in your life. It is the catalyst to your search for the Truth.

A small story: Once a disciple was walking with a Zen master when a flock of geese flew overhead. The master asked, “What are they?” The disciple replied, “They are wild geese, master.” The master asked, “Where are they?” The disciple replied, “They have flown away.” The master suddenly caught the disciple’s nose and twisted it. The disciple cried out in pain. The master said, “You say they have flown away, but they have been here from the start.”

This story may sound strange, but this is the way of most Zen masters. Pain has a tremendous value in awakening you to reality. That is why it has been used by many masters to awaken the sleeping disciple. Normally what do we do when someone is in pain? We console. And unknowingly we enable the person to continue to sleep. But the master is not interested in consoling — his only interest is in awakening you. In a moment of great pain, the mind stops, there is only pain. In that moment, the Truth is delivered. In the story, you can see that in the moment of pain, the disciple’s inner space was ready to receive the Truth from the master, and the master delivered it.

Paramahamsa Nithyananda is a spiritual leader