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Once a disciple went to his master and said, “Master, I am not able to meditate. My legs ache. I feel distracted.” The master just said, “It will pass.” After two weeks, the disciple went back to the master, this time saying, “I am able to meditate beautifully. I feel so aware and blissful.” The master again replied, “It will pass.”
The roots of pain and pleasure are the same. It is the same sensation with two names. Two people receive a massage from the same person. One concludes that it was a beautiful, rejuvenating process while the other decides that it hurt!

In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says it beautifully: “He who regards alike pleasure and pain, and looks on a lump of earth, a stone, and a piece of gold with an equal eye, who is wise and holds praise and blame to be the same, who is unchanged in honor and dishonor, and who treats friend and foe alike, is said to have gone beyond the modes of nature. Pleasure and pain are the same to him and he is ready for enlightenment.”

When you understand that pleasure and pain are both creations of the mind, you will realize that they are both temporary, they come and go like soap bubbles. The only way is to go beyond both pleasure and pain. This doesn’t mean suppressing pleasure or forgetting about pain. It is an awareness that transforms pain to bliss — the energy that exists no matter what the external situation may be. It is because of your resistance to what is happening that you feel pain and your natural bliss is forgotten.

Normally, whatever steps we take when faced with pain are attempts to escape our suffering. People ask me how I am able to be blissful all the time and whether enlightenment gets rid of all pain. Enlightenment is not an escape from pain but an understanding of pain. It gives deep insight and the courage to look objectively at yourself. “Why am I feeling miserable? What is it that is causing me suffering and anguish? What exactly is making me hurt?” All you need is the courage to ask these questions and face the answers.

You will be free from suffering. A small story: Once a man came to a Zen master with a question, “Master, how can we avoid heat and cold?” The master replied, “Be hot, be cold.”

Heat and cold are metaphorical representations of pleasure and pain. How to avoid pleasure and pain? Just go through both in a witnessing state, that’s all.

Paramahamsa Nithyananda is a spiritual leader