Many mystics experience a sense of pain or wounding as part of their union with the Divine, a sacred pain. For some, this can be physical and obvious to observers. This is perhaps most startlingly manifest in the great Catholic stigmatists, like St. Francis of Assisi.
This "pain" has a few levels of meaning and types of experience.
On one level, the pain can be quite literal and even physical. But it might be more accurate to refer to this as "intensity" rather than "pain." It can be as if the senses and the perceptual mind's ability to process it all gets overloaded. The mystic then experiences a searing, cleansing sort of intensity, that might be called pain.
Through profound opening, one feels everything more completely, a sort of universal empathy. There is a lot of hidden suffering in the world and, at a certain point, we feel it as our own. (Actually, we always feel it anyway, but the walls of denial fall away, and we become aware of it for the first time.) In a directly sentient way, we become aware of the interconnectedness of life. Initially, that flood of feeling is intense, even painful, but that is the pain of the heart breaking open. It becomes a sort of wound one carries, but it resolves itself with beauty and sense of unity that manages to integrate even the most terrible suffering.
Other mystics speak of a wounding in a more metaphorical sense. The pain experienced is the perception of one's separation from God. But that pain itself is the doorway to reunion. By allowing oneself to become completely vulnerable to that pain, to surrender to it, the mystic finds the pain transformed into the blissful touch of the Beloved.
In the past, I've written --
Your most secret wound is the doorway.
Ultimately, all of these forms of pain are the pain of the pierced ego. For one with inner balance, where the protective but limiting shell of the ego is no longer necessary, that pain points the way to freedom.
For this reason, mystics and saints describe the pain as being sweet or joyful or beautiful. It is, in fact, the beginning of bliss.
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For Light |
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Abil-Kheir, Abu-Said If you do not give up the crowds |
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Abil-Kheir, Abu-Said My Beloved, this torture and pain |
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AE (Russell, George William) The Place of Rest |
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Anandamurti (Sarkar, Prabhat Ranjan) On the path of the journey to effulgence, |
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Angelou, Maya Alone |
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Angelou, Maya Million Man March Poem |
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Angelou, Maya Still I Rise |
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Aonghus of the Divinity O Christ, protect me! |
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Arabi, Muhyiddin ibn If what she says is true |
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Attar, Farid ud-Din If you don't arrive with a wounded heart |
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Attar, Farid ud-Din Look -- I do nothing; He performs all deeds |
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Aurobindo The Guest |
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Ayaz Suffering is only ever |
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Berry, Wendell Now you know the worst |
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Berry, Wendell Sabbaths 1998, VI |
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Berry, Wendell Testament |
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Blake, William Auguries of Innocence |
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Booth, Philip Saying It |
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Brabazon, Francis Dawn is a Friend |
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Broughton, James Having Come This Far |
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Ching-Yuen, Loy To know Tao |
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Crashaw, Richard The Flaming Heart or the Life of the Glorious S. Teresa |
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Crashaw, Richard To the Name above every Name, the Name of Jesus |
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Daniel, Arnaut Every day I improve and grow better |
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Daniel, Arnaut The firm desire that enters |
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Dickinson, Emily The hallowing of Pain |
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Emre, Yunus Let's Take Yunus Emre |
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Farid, Baba Sheikh I thought I was alone who suffered |
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Farid, Baba Sheikh Raga Asa |
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Francis of Assisi Prayer Inspired by the Our Father |
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Ghalib, Mirza The drop dies in the river |
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Gibran, Kahlil Pain |
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Granger, Ivan M. Empty Dawn |
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Granger, Ivan M. Fidelity |
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Granger, Ivan M. Medusa |
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Hadewijch Love Has Seven Names |
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Hafiz If life remains, I shall go back to the tavern |
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Hafiz (Ladinsky, Daniel) How Could a Lover Fall? |
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Hanh, Thich Nhat Contemplation |
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Hanh, Thich Nhat Please Call Me by My True Names |
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Hirshfield, Jane The Lives of the Heart |
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Islam, Nazrul Come silently like the Moon |
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Jacopone da Todi (Benedetti, Jacopone) At the cross her station keeping (from Stabat Mater Dolorosa) |
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Jacopone da Todi (Benedetti, Jacopone) How the Soul Through the Senses Finds God in All Creatures |
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Jacopone da Todi (Benedetti, Jacopone) In losing all, the soul has risen (from Self-Annihilation and Charity Lead the Soul...) |
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Jayadeva Raga Gujri |
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Jayadeva When spring came, tender-limbed Radha wandered (from The Gitagovinda) |
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John of the Cross I Live Yet Do Not Live in Me |
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John of the Cross Without a Place and With a Place |
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Kabir The light of the sun, the moon, and the stars shines bright |
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Kabir The Lord is in Me |
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Kalidas (Edwards, Lawrence) Take Refuge in Silence |
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Kerouac, Jack The Scripture of the Golden Eternity |
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Ko Un Arrows |
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Kuzminsky, Irina Eyeing Death |
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Llull, Ramon January (from The Book of the Lover and Beloved) |
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Lowitz, Leza Downward-Facing Dog (Adho Mukha Svanasana) |
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Maharshi, Ramana The Necklet of Nine Gems |
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Maharshi, Ramana The Song of the Poppadum |
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Maier, Michael Three Golden Apples from the Hesperian grove (from Atalanta Fugiens) |
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McCombs, Chris Is This Your Time? |
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Mechthild of Magdeburg Of the voices of the Godhead |
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Mechthild of Magdeburg Set Me on Fire |
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Meher Baba How Wonderful is the murderous mercy of God! |
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Meher Baba The Beloved's Face |
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Merton, Thomas A Messenger from the Horizon |
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Merton, Thomas Stranger |
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Merton, Thomas The Sowing of Meanings |
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Milarepa Upon this earth, the land of the Victorious Ones |
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Milosz, Czeslaw Forget |
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Mirabai I am pale with longing for my beloved |
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Mirabai No one knows my invisible life |
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Mirabai The Beloved Comes Home |
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Mirabai The Dagger |
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Mistral, Gabriela The Rose |
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Nasimi, Imadeddin I take the Merciful One's shape, the Merciful I am |
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Nematollah Vali, Shah Take one step beyond yourself |
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Nematollah Vali, Shah The Sea Is Our Essence |
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Neruda, Pablo Gautama Christ |
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Neruda, Pablo The Poet's Obligation |
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Nirmala A lasting marriage |
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Novalis Over I journey |
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Nurbakhsh, Javad Surrender |
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Nurbakhsh, Javad The Pain of Love |
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Oliver, Mary Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches? |
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Rahman Baba Sow Flowers |
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Ramprasad (Sen, Ramprasad) O Mother, who really |
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Ramprasad (Sen, Ramprasad) Who is that Syama woman |
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Ramsay, Jay Sadhu |
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Ramsay, Jay Sadhu |
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Ravidas Upon seeing poverty |
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Rilke, Rainer Maria For your sake poets sequester themselves |
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Roethke, Theodore The Minimal |
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Rosenstock, Gabriel why was the veil rent |
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Rumi, Mevlana Jelaluddin Like This |
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Rumi, Mevlana Jelaluddin Secret Language |
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Rumi, Mevlana Jelaluddin The Sun Must Come |
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Rumi, Mevlana Jelaluddin We are the mirror as well as the face in it |
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Sanai, Hakim The Way of the Holy Ones |
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Saraha The Royal Song of Saraha (Dohakosa) |
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Sarmad The universe |
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Sarton, May Unison Benediction |
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Shabistari, Mahmud The Tavern Haunters |
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Sivavakkiyar The slothful |
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Stafford, William The Way It Is |
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Stagnaro, Janaka Crushing Leaves |
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Szymborska, Wislawa A Contribution to Statistics |
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Szymborska, Wislawa I'm Working on the World |
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Tagore, Rabindranath (84) It is the pang of separation that spreads throughout the world (from Gitanjali) |
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Teresa of Avila In the Hands of God |
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Teresa of Avila My Beloved One is Mine |
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Teresa of Avila Oh Exceeding Beauty |
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Therese of Lisieux My Song for Today |
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Thompson, Francis The Hound of Heaven |
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Tilopa Song of the Mahamudra (Tilopa's Song to Naropa) |
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Tolkien, J. R. R. EƤrendil the Mariner |
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Trungpa, Chogyam A flower is always happy |
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Trungpa, Chogyam Expose |
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Tsogyel, Yeshe This self-sufficient black lady has shaken things up |
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Tukaram All men to me are god-like Gods! |
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Tulsi Sahib The Rainy Season |
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Valad, Sultan The Soul That Does not Live in God is not Alive |
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Vaughan, Henry The Retreate |
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Vivekananda Song of the Sanyasin |
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Walters, Dorothy Teresa's Enigma |
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Walters, Dorothy Taken |