From Pain to Peace

During the major part of the long pilgrimage along the evolutionary road, pain is, to some extent, inevitable. It fulfills functions which are not only useful, but indeed valuable and necessary.

By Roberto Assagioli , undated, derived from The Assagioli Archive in Florence. Translated by Jan Kuniholm. Original Title: Dal Dolore alla Pace.

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Introduction I: From Pain to Meditation

Pain and Peace may be said to be the two terminal points of the path man follows in the course of his inner evolution, from when he begins to acquire true consciousness of himself to when he voluntarily unites himself with the universal Life and interweaves his rhythms harmoniously within the cosmic rhythmic pattern.

During the major part of the long pilgrimage along the evolutionary road, pain is, to some extent, inevitable. It fulfills functions which are not only useful, but indeed valuable and necessary. These functions are many, but there are four principal and particularly beneficial ones.

In the early stages of human evolution – but to some extent also in the later ones – the value of pain lies principally in its capacity to shake man out of his passive inertia, his comfortable routines, his fundamental mental and moral laziness, and his narrow egocentricity.

“Good pain” employs its many and various forms to induce and oblige him to “wake up”, to arouse his latent energies, to will and to mature his “talents”.

The second beneficent function of pain is, in a certain sense, the opposite of the first. It is to disengage man from excessive attachments to things or people, to liberate him from the slavery to which his instincts, passions and desires subjugate him, and to discourage him from committing new errors and incurring fresh guilt. This function is, therefore, purificatory and releasing.

The third function of pain is associated with the preceding one in that it induces man to discipline himself and control the disorderly instinctive, emotional and mental energies which seethe within him; to regulate and organize them so that they become converted from the destructive  to the constructive; to transform them, canalizing them and utilizing them for productive and beneficent activities, and directing them to lofty and humanitarian ends. While this demands energetic and persistent “inner action”, the wonderful results obtained more than compensate for the labour involved. The self-possession and sense of security and power that pervade the inner kingdom of the self give deep and lasting satisfaction. And order signifies harmony and beauty.

Finally, pain leads to and compels recollection, reflection, and meditation. It possesses the precious and indispensable mission of recalling us from the superficial and materially oriented life which, occupied with external affairs, we are too often leading, scattering and frittering away our forces. Pain jolts us, making us “re-enter into ourselves,” arresting our breathless pace and turning our attention inwards and upwards. Thus we commence really to think, to put the great problems of life to ourselves, to discover their justification, understand their significance, and intuit their purpose and goal. Then follows the creation of silence within us, accompanied by “questioning,” prayer, and invocation. Then begins the inner conversation, or “dialogue”, with a principle, a higher reality, and with our Soul, or God.

Later we shall see in the second introduction what precious fruits this yields.

In considering the subject of pain, a reservation must be made and possible exaggeration avoided. The recognition of pain’s invaluable functions must not encourage us to over-value it, or make a cult of it, to the point of not trying to alleviate it or, worse, of inflicting it on others (and even on ourselves) when neither necessary or truly useful. It may be said, a trifle paradoxically, that pain possesses value if and insofar as it leads to its own elimination, its own overcoming. In other words, pain is not an end in itself, but a means of creating certain effects and inculcating certain lessons. When it has fulfilled these functions, we can and should say “Thanks” to it and leave it resolutely behind.

The evaluation of pain must not make us suspicious and afraid of joy, which has, like pain, high and necessary functions. First of all, it is “dynamogenetic”, i.e., its prime gift is to arouse and increase our energies, to activate our metabolism and raise our vital tone. It can truly be regarded as an effective means of healing. Joy dispels the mists of depression and frees us from fear and particularly from the miasmas of self-pity.

Joy, then, is contagious; it spreads itself and radiates upon others, benefitting them and creating between them and us harmonious and productive relations. Thus the cultivation of joy, far from- being something to be regarded with misgiving, constitutes no less than a duty towards others.

Introduction II: From Meditation to Understanding

When a person no longer lives superficially or allows his instinctive and emotional reactions to control him, the initial theme on which he feels prompted to meditate is that of good and evil.

The average man’s spontaneous attitude is to consider “good” what brings him pleasure and “bad” what causes him suffering. But with the beginning of reflection and perception of the chain of causes and effects, he becomes aware of the largely erroneous nature of this criterion. He notices that an apparent “evil” is not infrequently produces good effects and, conversely, that a momentary “good” can have very unpleasant consequences.

Should he pursue and deepen his reflection, he discovers an even more important fact, viz., “good” and “evil” are not something objective, inherent in external actions and occurrences, but largely depend upon our attitude, our evaluation, our reactions. It thus depends essentially upon us whether what happens becomes good or bad for us.

This recognition carries a very important effect, I would say “revolutionary” in the etymological sense of the word. In fact, it transfers, or “directs”, the core of the problem from without to within. We come to understand that nothing can truly do us “harm” if we, by our attitude, do not allow it to, or do us “good” if we are unable to profit by it and make wise and appropriate use of it.

In this way we reach a joyous sense of inner freedom and of independence from the world, from circumstances and from other people. But at the same time, we are conscious of our responsibility.

We can no longer accuse other men and fate of being the sole, indeed even the principal, architects of our “ills”. We appreciate the extent to which they are contingent upon our way of thinking, of feeling and acting.

Meditating on the world, life and ourselves opens the way beyond to other important and beneficial recognitions. The first of these is the existence of true humility and modesty with the consequent simplicity of demeanor. This careful and dispassionate examination reveals to us how many are the mistakes and stupidities we have committed and are continuously committing. But this is very healthy, both because it constitutes the first and indispensable step towards their discontinuance, or at least curtailment, and because it helps us to free ourselves from our foolish presumptions and absurd vanity, and to replace unjustified pride with wise humility. It is to be noted that this by no means implies a sense of inferiority, which can be just as unjustified and harmful. It is, rather, fully compatible with a sense of human dignity since the recognition of one’s defects is the first stage in the process of their eradication and does not exclude awareness of our “talents”, our wonderful latent possibilities, and the high destiny to which we are called.

Thus it is that we come to a sane and justified optimism, a luminous hope and an unshakeable faith. And these, in their turn, arouse and sustain courage to confront trials and fight life’s battles. By releasing us from subjectivism, egotism and pride, meditation creates favorable conditions for the development of two other groups of high spiritual qualities; goodness, altruism and love and wisdom and understanding.

These two groups of qualities not only complement each other, but also stimulate and evoke each other by turns. In fact, goodness and love, in opening our minds to the minds of others and in consequence the minds of others to ours, permit us to approach them closely, see into them and indeed penetrate into them to the point of uniting and fusing ourselves with others. Such communion, or identification, leads to direct understanding, “from within”, so to speak. And conversely, spiritual understanding derived from wisdom arouses in us naturally a sense of altruism and goodness.

Their synthesis constitutes that loving understanding which is the magic key that opens every heart, that represents the irresistible way of dissipating misunderstandings, antipathies and hostility, and establishing right human relations in every field of community life, from the family up to the whole of humanity.

Introduction III: From understanding to peace

Wise and loving understanding possesses supreme value and lavishes many precious spiritual gifts on those willing to receive and utilize them. First of all, it bestows a right sense of proportion, causing us to see events and people in correct perspective, where usually our myopic egocentricity makes them appear out of proportion and misshapen. Things which touch or interest us closely loom large even if of minimal importance, while distant affairs, be they of momentous significance, make no impression on us, or only do so in a vague and nebulous way.

And since the comical and the absurd are largely products of those incongruities and errors of perspective, the understanding which permits us to perceive them thus confers on us the divine gift of humour.

Loving understanding constitutes the necessary foundation for another of the noble gifts which man can both receive and bestow: friendship. This must not and cannot; be blind, as what is customarily called “love” so often is. A true friend is one, seeing without illusion the defects, however serious, of his friend’s personality, at the same time perceives his qualities, true germs of good innate in him, and his higher potentialities. Not allowing himself to be put off by the former, he focuses on the latter, arousing, evoking and assisting them to manifest.

Reciprocal understanding is necessary for the establishment of harmonious and productive cooperation between individuals and groups in every field. Besides creating right human relations, understanding forges strong links between ourselves and life, between ourselves and the universe, between ourselves and God.

By eliminating the illusions and faulty vision which veil and hide reality, understanding helps us to “see clear”, to perceive truth and to penetrate deceptive appearances to the wonderful reality behind, the animating Spirit of the universe.

Thus we come to discover the great law of justice and equilibrium, which regulates life in all its manifestations. It is the law of cause and effect, recognized and demonstrated by science in the physical world, which operates equally in the psychological and moral world, in the human world. It would in fact be absurd if a relationship existed between cause and effect, i.e., “justice” in the material world and not in the moral world. a) but this law (called the law of Karma, or action, by the Indians) must not be regarded as something that binds, constraints and encloses us within an inflexible destiny. Properly understood and used, it proves an aid instead in releasing us from the bonds forged by our ignorance and errors; it shows us the way and offers us the means of winning our liberty.

An example will help us to understand clearly the nature of this “liberty in law”. Aviation have given man the power to move freely in the air, but he has not achieved it by abrogating or violating the law of gravity. By employing it skilfully, rather, he controls it while obeying it. The same thing can be done – and is done by sages and illuminates – in the moral field.

The great mystery of death and immortality can be rendered less enigmatic by spiritual understanding. It dispels the materialistic illusion that the dissolution of the physical body spells the finale for man. It helps him to discover within himself that which cannot perish, which persists in the world of reality and which can clothe itself anew in fresh material and visible forms in order to undergo further experiences, accomplish new tasks and arrive at full realization of the Self, in conscious union with the Divine Life.

Thus the highest and most extensive understanding is reached, an understanding which reveals the universe to be in truth a “cosmos” that is, in the etymological sense, order, harmony and beauty.

Essential beauty is beyond form. It is literally “coherence” and harmonious relationship between beings, phenomena and events. At the summit Beauty, Truth  and Goodness converge and fuse in the synthesis that is the supreme Unity.

Formal beauty is the reflection in manifested life of this principle of harmony. True art is the human expression of this beauty immanent in the universe. And peace is the inevitable effect in the mind of man of understanding; it is the conscious realization of the universal harmony. As the number of men acquiring this inner PEACE increases, there will be created the only sure and enduring conditions for the elimination of conflict, strife and wars, and for the establishment of collective and external peace in the world.