Rule 11: The Inevitableness of Pain

The midwife knows that when there is no pain, the way for the baby cannot be opened and the mother cannot give birth. Likewise for a new self to be born, hardship is necessary. Just as day needs to go through intense heat to become strong, Love can only be perfected in pain.

Let us have a look at nature. It is not designed for perfection and avoidance of pain but for constant change and learning from change in order to evolve. One mechanism of learning is working with the experience of pain. Probably there is no fundamental change which happens without any pain. The seed has to brake through the peel to become a grass leaf or an oak tree. And when it lands on stony and dry soil, it will suffer deprivation and die at some point. Still life moves on and creates new forms over and over again from a large range of possibilities. In the balance of happiness and pain, the growth of life takes place.

From the wisdom of our organism we can learn that pain is part of the process of life. There is no life without pain, neither in humans nor in any other sentient being. The sensation of pain is probably one of the earliest achievements of the evolution (combined with the sensation of fear) to allow the higher development of life. As the different forms of living organisms become more and more complex, also the sensation of pain becomes more complex. We can have pains in our joints or in our temper, we know phantom pain and relationship pain. According to our sensitivity, we feel hurt by many and different things which gives us the impression that life is not perfect.

Pain is a discomfort for us and we want to avoid it. Of course, no one wants to suffer. And our organism is programmed to this avoidance. But it also wants to show us that there are problems: Pains indicate danger or signal that something is out of order or that there is a change happening to create a new arrangement.

And then the mind comes in and says that a perfect, which means pain free life should or must be possible. We only have to eliminate all sources of pain: Mistakes in our bodies (by physical operations), disturbances in the nervous system (by chemical drugs), tedious people (they all need therapy), too much taxes (we need better politicians) and so on.

But whatever we try, there will come new sources of pain as soon as we have found the remedies for the old ones. So the mind starts to blame to huge whole of existence as it must have built a central mistake into the design and screenplay of humanity. Why should I suffer the whole time by this mismanagement? It is not in my but in Your hand to arrange things so they do not hurt me again and that there is no more disturbance. But You refuse to act like this.

What is the answer to this typical human accusation? If you want to grow, you have to endure pain. And even if you renounce to grow and want to go on living like a human vegetable or daisy, suffering will occur.

As humans, we have the possibility of our mind to be able to think that everything could also be different. And that it should be different when we do not like it as it is. But even if we do not like it the way it is we can only grow when we are willing to accept everything what life has to offer us and to move on from there, whether it is unpleasant or pleasant. Our mind’s protest adds little to that growth, usually it adds a burden by its insistence and reluctance.

It is the decent intention of our mind to enable us to live a comfortable life free of fears, and this is why it has developed the idea to avoid pain and suffering at any cost. So we run to the doctor as soon as anything hurts and get the pills which successfully suppress the pains. We expect that child delivery is free of pain for the mother, so the doctors take care of that without noticing the consequences for the baby: it can cope with pain but not with chemical pain killers.

The good message is: The power of love is stronger than pain as the power of life is stronger than any obstacle. When love grows, suffering is reduced. But do not fall for the illusion to avoid pain and go the most comfortable way – to whatever you close the front door  comes in through the back door.


The rules are taken from Elif Shafak's novel “The Forty Rules of Love” (Viking 2010). They are inspired by the Sufi tradition and worded by the autor's imagination. www.elifshafak.com