Mind is the best healer

Humans suffer from three kinds of tapatraya, or pain: heat/anxieties/tensions caused by AdhyAtmika, Adi-bhautika and adi-daivika, namely body, nature and karma, with impact on physical, mental and spiritual facets. A variation of the mental pain is emotional pain, probably the worst of all. When we are inflicted by pain, we look for solutions to heal them by running to doctors, specialists or spiritual gurus.

It is difficult to grade pains into severity levels. Usually, every kind of pain is unique to the sufferer, which he cannot precisely explain to others, and even if so attempted, the listener can neither understand nor experience; he can only empathise and console.

Fortunately, most pains can be alleviated and sometimes cured by the one internal power itself, ie., the mind.

Mind, in the nature of the universe, has immense energies and techniques to heal. Scientific experiments have established that the processing of all pains takes place in the mind itself. The wiring of the mind to receive the pain stimuli may vary but its processing and cure are identical regardless of the category of the pain.

Hence, mind is one of the best remedial instruments. Even where the pain cannot be healed completely, it can be transcended. There are various methods, beyond the conventional medical systems, available to the mind for curing pain -- meditation, prayer, yoga, love, service, attention diversion, music, and mindful observation, to name a few.

Each one of these is a powerful instrument and works uniquely on different individuals, based on their physical and mental disposition.

Pain also has positive effects -- it makes us realise the futility of all worldly possessions, positions and diverts our mind towards spiritual thoughts and way of living. If none of these methods works, the last resort, which should be the the first, is to surrender to the God. There are various methods of doing this through prayer, stotras, meditation, poojas, satsang and so on.

This well-known and oft repeated and reassuring sloka in the Bhagavad Gita works wonders: Ananyah chintayantyomam teh janah paryupasate…meaning ‘it is my responsibility and I will protect those who worship me with devotion regularly, look after their welfare and free them from all worldly pains and fears’.