​​​​If we have terrible pain, how can bhakti help us tolerate that pain?

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scripture.
Thank you. So, if you are going through some pain, then how can we tolerate it by spiritual consciousness? I wrote an article about it. So, can I explain based on that article? Yeah.
In 2011, I was in a temple in Mumbai, and early morning I was chanting, and walking along. So, somehow some water had spilled over there, and my leg went on the water, I slipped and fell badly. So, I already have polio in this leg, and I fell on that leg itself.
So, the leg was already weakened by osteoporosis. I didn’t realize at that time, the bone literally, it was, nine-tenth of the bone just ripped apart. So, it was horrible pain.
And then, it was just early morning, and at that time, the pain was just become unbearable. So, afterwards, I’ll come back to this incident, but afterwards, a friend wrote to me, this friend is a college friend, who is an atheist. So, he said that, you know, you are in temple of God, chanting the names of God, and still God couldn’t protect you.
Do you still believe in God? So, I wrote an article, that is there on the spiritual scientist. Do you still believe in God? So, actually, yes, the pain is real. But at that time, since I was introduced to spirituality, I love the Bhagavad Gita verses.
So, I memorized the full Bhagavad Gita, I spoke on the full Bhagavad Gita, I recited the verses. So, at that time, I just started reciting the Bhagavad Gita verses. It’s almost as if, you know, I could see myself from an out-of-body.
I have fallen over here, and this person is in pain, but I am above it. So, it was an extraordinary experience. I just felt myself raised above my body.
The moment I stopped reciting verses, all the pain started coming back. So, I was not chanting the verses out of bhakti. I was chanting the verses simply out of necessity.
So, of course, Krishna says, the scriptures say, somehow Arthada fixed the mind on Krishna. So, it was around maybe 6.30 or 7, when the accident happened. And then we thought it was a minor accident, but then, so, there was one physiotherapist who was there, just moved the leg around.
He said, I was able to move around because I was reciting the verses. I didn’t feel much pain. He said, if you are able to move the leg around, that means there is no problem here.
So, then I was just going on. It was almost for 2-2.5 hours, and still the pain was not decreasing. Then we decided we will go and do an X-ray.
So, then we went and did the X-ray, and finally, in the nearby clinic, when the person did the X-ray, he was shocked. He said, with this much fracture, you should be screaming in pain. He said, how are you even conscious? He said, immediately you should go to a hospital.
Then we got a car, and then we went to a hospital. And even the orthopedic surgeon, he said, okay, what is the problem? He said, I think I have a fracture. Okay, we will do an X-ray.
He said, no, we have done the X-ray. He looked at the X-ray, this cannot be your X-ray. He said, what do you mean? He said, no, a person with this much bone breakage, that person could be screaming in pain.
So, it is not that I was very self-realized. I was only realized about the power of spiritual sound vibration. So, it just was a remarkable experience for me that, by the power of spiritual sound, I was able to, by raising the consciousness to a spiritual level, I was able to tolerate pain.
So, I wrote back in a letter to my friend, that yes, you know, when you practice bhakti, it is, Krishna does not promise a problem-free life. Now, says in the Bhagavad Gita, He says, He says, if you become conscious of me, you will pass over all obstacles by my grace. So, he is not saying obstacles will not come.
What he is saying is, he will pass over obstacles by his grace, if we become conscious of him. This world is a place of problems. It is like, if we are deceased.
Now, if we have got a disease, and it’s a serious disease, even if you go to the best doctor in the world, it’s not that instantly the pain will stop. Suppose there are two patients, both of them are sick and are in pain. One of them has been diagnosed and is being treated.
The other has been not yet been diagnosed and no treatment has been prescribed. Now, externally speaking, both of them are in pain, but actually their situation is not the same. For one who has been diagnosed and is being treated, the pain is on the path to decrease and removal.
For the other, the pain is probably likely to increase, because the disease is not being treated at all. It’s going to worsen. So, like that, when we are spiritually conscious and when we are spiritually not conscious, in both cases, in life, problems are going to come.
Just like a diseased person will feel pain, but when we are spiritually conscious, we are like a person whose disease has been diagnosed and the treatment is going on. So, the pain will decrease. And to the extent we spiritualize our consciousness, to the extent we direct our consciousness towards spiritual reality, to that extent, the pain that we experience will become lesser and lesser.
So, when we have problems, now, don’t tell God how big your problems are. Tell your problems how big God is. So, don’t tell God, Oh God, I have this problem and that problem.
Why don’t you solve it? Even when we are going before God, it’s good to go to God and pray to God when we have problems. But when we go to Krishna, rather than being problem conscious over there, Oh, I have this problem. I have this problem.
Problems have a nature that the life determines our problems, we determine their size. Life determines the problems, but we determine their size. The more we think of a problem, the bigger it becomes.
The bigger it becomes. And suppose somebody is a, maybe somebody is a little, they become a little obese. Now, okay, it’s not a big problem.
You can diet and get back your figure or whatever. It’s not a big problem. But if they’re thinking constantly, Oh, I’m obese.
I’m obese. I’m obese. I’m obese.
The problem is there, but the problem becomes a big burden. So, the more we think of a problem, the bigger the problem becomes. And when the bigger the problem becomes, the more we feel crushed.
So, what bhakti does is, bhakti gives us an alternative, satisfying object of thought, on which you can focus. So, don’t tell God how big your problems are. Tell your problems how big God is.
Yes, this is a problem, but by God’s grace, this problem can be solved. So, let me focus on connecting with God. Focus on my consciousness on God.
And by absorption in God, whatever problems come, we’ll be able to deal with them eventually. Okay. Thank you.
So, thank you very much for your kind attention. So, if a devotee is practicing