If misery is caused by misidentification, then why is there not just mental pain but also physical pain?

From Mohan Gaurachandra P

The emotional/mental pain when the body is damaged or lost is understandable. But why there is the physical pain. This pain is even seen in the lives of great saintly persons

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you. I have a question from Mohan Govachandra Prabhu. If our suffering is because of misidentification, just like say the audience is watching a movie and audience suffers when say the hero is beaten, then why do we have physical pain, not just emotional or mental pain? And this physical pain is present even in great saintly people.
Why is that? Answer? Yes, this is a thoughtful question. Now, firstly, when we talk about some pain as physical and some pain as mental, that is talking primarily about the location of origin of the pain. But as far as the root of the pain is concerned, R-O-U-T-E, not R-O-O-T, as far as the pathway of the pain is concerned, all pain passes through the mind, through the brain, through the mind, and it reaches the soul.
So, from that point of view, where the misidentification is happening doesn’t matter. As long as the misidentification is there, the suffering is there. So, to give an example once again, if, say, a person is watching a movie.
Now, in that movie, say, okay, there’s a hero and a heroine who are discussing, and there’s a beautiful showpiece, maybe some nice item of showpiece, and suddenly the hero and heroine start quarreling, and they just bang the table and it falls off. Now, most people may just be jolted by it, but somebody who has sort of developed an attachment to it, that person may be shocked by it, anguished by it. Why? Because there is more attachment.
So, that means that, okay, somebody else may be more attached to the hero, and some villain comes and beats the hero, that time one will feel attached. But actually, the point is, anything that is there on the screen, that, within that, whatever we misidentify with, that will be the cause of suffering. So, from our current point of view, we may say that there is a difference between the mental and the physical.
But then, we have to also understand that, even the mental is the object of misidentification. To explain this, we think that, because the body is external to us, the body is external, and the mind is inside us, the mind is internal. But, the mind is also external to the soul.
The soul is beyond what people consider as external, that is the body, and what people consider as internal, that is the mind. So, the mind is internal to the internal. And from the soul’s perspective, the soul is internal to the body and the mind, and therefore, from the soul’s perspective, identifying with the mind and identifying with the body are both similar, and both will cause pain.
Now, in one sense, we could say that mental pain can be removed by detachment. Yes, if I’m not attached to something, I’ll not suffer. But will physical pain go away by detachment? Not exactly, because we have to understand that all metaphors, whatever examples, whatever analogies we give, they are limited.
We cannot understand the nature of illusion completely by any one metaphor. So, scripture sometimes is the example of a dream. Now, what happens in a dream is not exactly real.
There is no reality to it. But then, our philosophy also says that this world is real. So, therefore, that is something which is, if we try to extend the analogy over there, then the analogy stretches and breaks.
Of course, they are wishing to compensate Govinda Bhashya by saying that even what happens in the dream world is real. So, that is, of course, an elaborate subject. I have answered a question on my website, Are Dreams Real? if you want to hear that.
But my point is that no analogy can give us a full explanation of the nature of illusion. So, for example, if we say there is a mirage, now, the mirage is also one favorite metaphor used in the scriptures. Mirgitrishnirupa, Prahlad Maharaj says about the nature of material pleasure.
Now, in a mirage, there is no water. But then the scriptures also say that there is pleasure in this world. In one of the Upanishads, I think, Taittiriya Upanishad, in the Bhakti Samyukta also he said that, if the earthly happiness is like a drop, then the heavenly happiness is 10,000 times more.
And then the Brahma Loka’s happiness is so many times more. And then Brahmananda’s happiness is even more. And Bhakti Ananda is even more.
Now, the statistics apart, the specific figures apart, the point is that if the earthly happiness was zero, then everything multiplied by zero would be zero only. So, earthly happiness is not zero. And Prahlad Maharaj, in the same words, in the Bhagavatam says that, he says, Madhu Lavai.
Lava means a drop. So, there is a drop of happiness. So, now, is there a drop of happiness or is there a mirage? No, the reality is somewhere in between.
It’s a drop, but the mirage is that it appears vast. It appears like an ocean. That’s one way we can understand it.
But the point is, we cannot expect any metaphor, any analogy to convey the reality of illusion completely. We can get an understanding of different aspects of the nature of illusion by different things. And that way, we can try to understand.
So, this particular analogy of watching a movie and identifying with the characters of the movie and thereby suffering, that primarily is used to indicate, to emphasize that attachment causes suffering and detachment will bring release from suffering. But detachment in and of itself does not take us out of the physical body. We are still, in terms of the soul, still in the body.
So, only when the soul comes out of the body completely, then the soul will become free from all physical pain completely. As long as the soul is in the body, the extent of the suffering can be increased or decreased by increase or decrease in attachment. But the basic bodily miseries of, say, caused by bodily pain will remain.
And of course, they will decrease to a large extent if the bodily attachment is less. But still, some amount of misery will remain. And that’s why we ultimately need not just Jeevan Mukti.
Jeevan Mukti means being liberated from the desires for material enjoyment while being in this world. We also need Videha Mukti. Videha Mukti means being liberated and becoming free from the body entirely and returning back to the spiritual world.
So, Atyantika Dukha Nirvana, the complete eradication, elimination of misery, happens when we attain Videha Mukti, when we become liberated from material existence entirely. Till then, some misery will be there because the soul is still rituated in the body and because the body is a tool with which the soul is tied up inextricably during the bodily existence. So, for the great souls, the bodily suffering is more of an inconvenience than a suffering.
It’s just like if I am in a car and the car breaks down, my plans get upset and I get disoriented, lost to some extent. It’s not the same as my leg getting fractured. So, for the great souls, it is more of an inconvenience than a suffering.
But still, there is an obstacle and there is a misery associated with that and that misery is there for everyone in material existence. Now, of course, a devotee can even in such a situation remember Krishna and transcend that misery. That is definitely there.
And in that sense, the scriptures often say that the remembrance of Krishna is like an umbrella which protects us from the heat of miseries and showers down the nectar of sweetness, of joyfulness. Tvandvat patrat amritabhivarshanat in the 11th canto of Bhagavad Gita. So, rather than focusing on stretching a particular metaphor, we can understand the central point of the metaphor of attachment causing, in some cases, misery and in some cases, increasing misery.
Either way, by developing detachment, we can either eliminate the misery or minimize the misery and by cultivating attachment to Krishna, we can transcend the misery. Thank you.